February: The Season of Love, Fear, and WTF
I had a lot of plans for 2025. When I laid it all out in December, I had this idea for myself that I would finish writing one project a month. I was so confident that I even set up secondary goals for things I would work on once the initial goal for the month was done. I can confidently say that only 1 of the things on my list has been accomplished so far.
Now, you might be thinking "Jessica! It's only February, you have time!" And to that I say: I know. I'm not bringing this lack of personal accomplishment to light for some sort of pity party. I'm actually pointing it out to remind some people who know me that we are all HUMAN. (Unless you're secretly some crummy AI bot come to scrape my blog in an attempt to find something useful. Than you can shove off.)
As a human, and not a robot, I have these grandiose goals that I truly believe I can achieve until I actually get there. Then, life happens. In this case, life took my February goal from 70k words, down to 30k, and even then it's been a struggle. Given everything that's happened so far this year, with my personal health that required dental work and rest, the political state of this country, and all of the things in between; writing has been pretty low on my list of things to do. As sad as that is, it's what I've been dealing with, and it's not going to end just because I want it to, so I have to adapt.
In light of these updates, I've decided that a good portion of the goals I set for myself aren't going to be achievable. I'm still keeping the goal of finishing Krampus and publishing it at the end of the year (possibly even wider then I did The Lonely Santa Claus), but I'm removing quite a few things in the interim. For instance, I had a goal of writing a second story for my pen name, because I thought I would be finished with the first story already. However, as you can tell, that didn't happen and the second book is not going to be written this year at all.
With these life changes happening, I'm reminding myself that I'm doing the best that I can with what I have. I'll continue to work on Krampus, probably well passed Beltane at this point, and once it's done I'll move on to finishing the edits of Potions & Pleasure. Can I promise to rewrite Potions & Pleasure this year? No, because that's one of the things that I've scrapped, because I don't think I'll be able to do it. I am still going to try and find time to finish draft 1 of Manoir De Monstre, but again I can't promise that any of these things will be completed.
I mentioned how I'm struggling to write Krampus, and I want to make something clear; it's not the story itself, but the process of writing. This is why I think I'm about to burn out, because I'm having trouble actually getting myself to sit down and focus on the writing. After I've started writing, it's been much easier and I've loved it, but that struggle to sit down and pay attention to my writing is such a chore right now. This usually happens when my ADHD is really hitting me, and in the past it's proceded my burnouts where I don't write for months or even years. i'm trying to be careful with myself and not push it to the point that that happens, but it's a balancing act to see if it'll work.
So, if you ever find yourself struggling from burnout, here's a little tip from me: Don't fight it. Don't tell yourself to "just try harder", because that's going to make the burnout worse. Rather, tell yourself that "even resting is progress". I know that resting doesn't come with a word count, or an achievement in any of the many writing events all over the place, but you know what? Who cares? Self care is everything! Eat that snack, take that nap, play that game, or read that book. Put your work off to the side and breathe without looking at it for a while, because sometimes that's all you need.
In other parts of my life, I've been so busy it's draining. Between birthdays, procedures, all of the cleaning and the upgrading, and the math for everything; I've been running myself into the ground. However, these struggles have come with fantastic things, like celebrating loved ones, getting a new phone that has been a God send for working away from my computer, and treating long time issues that I should have taken care of years ago. It's helped me feel a bit more confident about myself, and not just my writing.
I'm thinking about the different ways that I can help myself feel even better about my writing as well, and up my confidence that I can edit my stories and actually get them out. I'll be honest, though, it's hard to feel confident in such a thing with the current political climate. Being a Queer writer who writes very Queer romance, and a woman to boot, I'm afraid of finally getting my work to a place where I'm ready to release it, only to have it become illegal to do so. However, I also don't want my brain to use that fear as an excuse to not actually do the dang thing.
I've also set myself a goal to read at least 24 books this year, if not all 45 that I started the year with. This is just the number of my physical TBR, the books that I own a paperback or hardback copy of that I haven't read yet. So far, I've read 2 of them, but I did end up DNFing the first book for February after trying to read it for DAYS and just… not feeling it. There's nothing wrong with it! I'm just a mood reader, and every time I would try to read it, my brain would scream "ME NO WANT" and I'd lose all motivation to try. So, I shelved that one and moved on to the next one, which scratched the itch my brain had. I've been reading it pretty consistently since day 1 and I'm a little over half of it now, which I'm happy with. I'm really hopeful that this level of reading, or even anything remotely close to it, continues with the next books I read, because I could really use a TBR takedown.
And that's it, y'all! Remember, To Kill Me Kindly Episodes 1 & 2 are up on my Patreon, You can buy The Lonely Santa Claus right now as an ebook and a paperback, and I stream on Twitch up to 3 times a week! Also, you are loved, and you are deserving of peace.
