So, I have taken off for two weeks, and I'm one week in and I already feel better. I tried to spend this time "writing something new," but even that proved a frustration. My husband finally said, "Stop! Don't write anything for two weeks." It's the first time I've ever felt a release from guilt during those days when the words won't come. I can breathe.
In addition to not writing, I'm having to make some other changes. Painful changes. Not only am I having to admit to burnout, I'm having to admit that I'm an addict. When burnout started taking over, gaming started compensating as an escape, until the point where it became a full-blown addiction. So during these two weeks, I've pretty much hospitalized myself in my house, and I warned my husband, "Prepare for withdrawal. It won't be pretty." It wasn't. The first two days I was a wreck. Yet I prayed fiercely through those times when I felt restless, agitated, when all I wanted to do was log in. "No," I told myself, "you desire words. You have a passion for words." I have been reading and reading and reading, even when the idea of consuming more words feels like eating another bite I can't stomach.
Strangely--and very quickly--the creative urge resurfaced. I dragged out an old story that's been haunting me lately (pun intended), one my husband keeps mentioning, even though he read it six or eight years ago. Rereading it, I decided it would be fun to have it in print, so I've been editing it and building a book cover for it. I hope to publish it sometime around Halloween--which is only fitting for a ghost story.
Here's a little promo image for it:
image credits:
background: Kreatiques-x
tintype texture: AllThingsPrecious
swan: Drezdany
voodoo symbols: RavenGraphics
magic symbols: nomuh
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