As a writer, one of the biggest lessons I learned in 2021 was the importance of taking breaks. 

For the past 6 or 7 years, I really hadn’t taken any breaks from writing. It was one short story to the next. One novel to the next. I’d alternate between revising and drafting, but I’d do some kind of writing thing everyday. Maybe I’d take one or two days off to read a book on a weekend, but that was it. The pause between projects was never more than a couple days. 

This worked out okay for a while, as long as I alternated between revising and drafting frequently enough. But long term, it really was sustainable. 

2020 and 2021 were busy years. And they were traumatic years for me and probably everyone else because living through COVID is traumatic. 

At the end of 2020, I got into Pitch Wars, with is a mentorship program for writers that culminates in an agent showcase. It involved a lot of in-depth revision, and through it, I made some great friends. However, it was a lot of work. 

Right out of Pitch Wars, I got edits back for Earth Reclaimed, and it turned out they were very substantial developmental edits. They took months to get through. 

And even as I finished those, I had two nvelettes I had to keep rewriting and editing for an anthology, Distant Gardens. It was late July before I was done. 

So from mid-november 2020 through the end of July 2021, I had just been revising and editing on deadlines with almost no breaks between. 

When that time ended, finally, I was exhausted. My anxiety was through the roof. I couldn’t edit. I couldn’t revise. I couldn’t write. 

So I took August off.

In the fall, I started a few things, just for fun, but mostly just read. It wasn’t until November, until National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), that I actually wrote another book. And by then, I was ready. It felt so good to write again! 

But even now that I’ve finished writing one book and am sitting down to try and revise one of the six books I need to revise, I’m feeling overwhelmed. Like it’s too much to go back and revise again. 

It’s hard to get back into after all this time and all the memory I have of the stress from the last three things I revised. 

Had I taken more breaks and not let myself get as stressed out and burned out as I did, then I think things would be much easier now. 

I think one of the most important lessons I learned in 2021 is that I need to take breaks. I can’t just keep pushing myself non-stop. It’s okay to rest. It’s not only okay but necessary to take a break.

Once upon a time, I posted on this site at least once or twice a month, whether it was a book review, craft post, recipe, or something about teaching. Alas, it has been about six months since I posted any original content.  A lot has happened since then.

The most exciting of all the things that have happened was that I had a book published. A year and a half after Power Surge was released, its sequel, Power Inversion, is finally out in the world. It happened months later than I expected, but after setbacks, tears, and hard work, it’s finally here.

Writing this book was a blast, but editing it was not. The story was so clear in my head while I was drafting that I just flew through it, but shaping it into something readers could enjoy proved more challenging.

When I thought the book had shaped up well, I sent it off to my publisher. After waiting for months, my publisher finally offered to contract for it. I thought that meant my revisions had been a success. However, after another six months passed, I got the book back from my editor, and realized that was not the case at all.

No. I had to do another major rewrite.

I usually have somewhat thick skin when it comes to feedback, but I hadn’t been expecting it this late in the process. It really blindsided me and shook my confidence.

And the timing was the worst. The edits came the day before I left for a convention. My students were turning in drafts of their essays, which I needed to turn around quick. The weekend after the convention, I went to New York City for a launch party for an anthology I had a story in.

Weeks passed before I had time to really process the amount of work the book needed, let alone get started.

Then COVID-19 exploded in my area and I found myself scrambling to switch my face-to-face classes to remote learning. I liked working from home, but switching the method of instruction mid semester was extremely time consuming.

Getting through that rewrite felt like it took forever, but eventually, I finished. I let it rest. I read through it again and sent it back. The second round, the copy edits, and the proof read all had very quick turn-around times.

Just when I thought the book was finally ready to come out, I learned that it wouldn’t be coming out in early June like I’d been told. The release had been pushed up to the end of the month.

Finally, on June 22, 2020, Power Inversion was published.

I’ve ordered my copies, but they haven’t come in, so it still doesn’t quite feel real. It probably won’t until I finally get to hold the paper in my hand.