Work in Progress #31: Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go? (Progress Report, part deux)

Okay, so last time we talked, I just said hello.  Again.  Because I tend to disappear periodically, and for months at a time.  Sorry about that, by the way.  It’s a terrible habit.  Anyway, now that I’m back, it may be a good time to talk about what’s been going on and why I’ve been scarce since last March.

The short answer to that is burnout.

I’ve talked about burnout a few times before in this blog.  I’ve talked about how juggling a bunch of things constantly without end can make it hard to do things that you like to do or need to do for health and sanity.  Demands of life, employment, family and responsibility can make it hard to make time for the things that replenish you, like art or exercise.

I don’t write full-time.  I’d like to, and that’s a long-term goal of mine, but I’m not there yet.  I have a full-time job that would normally grant me enough down time in my life to write to my heart’s content.  The last couple of years, though?  Not so much.  It’s not like my job got harder in and of itself; far from it.  There are simply more demands on my life, be they in my control (owning a dog takes work, y’all) or not (elder care is prohibitively expensive in the wealthiest developed nation on Earth, and there’s a surcharge for things made either out of the country or with things sourced from out of the country), that have made me have to work more.  There are only but so many 12-hour night shifts you can do before your mind and body stop feeling right.  The natural culmination of that kind of stress is burnout.

You get it. Right?

Burnout has been a longstanding issue for me, and I’m sure it is for most of us.  We’re all managing some combination of work, home, relationships with family and/or friends, while dealing with a world that seems determined to set itself on fire.  These are things that normally accumulate as we get older and are more present and participatory in the world around us.  It’s taken me until the semi-ripe age of 47 to fully understand why people abandon creative pursuits as they get older.

I came close, myself.

There have been moments over the last couple of years when I looked at a blank page and asked myself what the point was.  Nothing fired in my creative mind.  Every idea seemed indulgent.  I worried about what I had to contribute.  I have no less than four novel-length projects right now that have at least one complete draft.  When I went to revise or edit, I might have a short burst of productivity.  However, somewhere along the line, I’d get sunk into the pointlessness of certain things and that would make me stop.  Luckily, I have some support around me in the form of my wife and a couple of writer friends who get it.

A funny thing happened around my birthday.  It was a Sunday; I had gone axe-throwing and to a karaoke bar the night before.  I’d gotten up, and before breakfast I started reading a project that I’d been halfheartedly editing for the last couple of years.

And I forgot to shave my head.

I’ve been shaving my head every two or three days since my early 20s.  Very few photos exist with me having a full head of hair.  I tried briefly in early 2024 and only lasted a few months before getting rid of it all in a fit of irritation. 

Anyway, I got so engrossed in the thing I’d been trying to fix that I forgot to shave that day.  A day became two, then a week, and before I knew it, a month went by.  That’s a lie: I knew from the way my head itched, or from being unable to feel the smoothness of my head.  Just a prickly, itchy, fuzziness.  But as I worked through the story, I turned the discomfort into a choice.  As much as I love being clean shaven, I decided not to shave* my head or my beard until the project I’m working on has a firm release date.

(*There will be lineups and beard trims, of course.  I work in a hospital, and I can’t look too scraggly.)

And that means there will soon be a lot of pics of me and my hair picked out into the beginnings of a glorious ‘fro.  Yes, I said glorious.  If I’m going to have it, I’m making sure to have fun with it.

And I’ll hopefully be able to call it my “Post-Burnout Hair Era.”

Here’s a bit of actual progress:  The thing that I’m working on is Empire Towers, a 9/11-adjacent workplace drama.  I just hit the 50% mark on it, and I hope to be fielding opinions on it soon.  More as it develops!