Holy Burnout Batman

Or, real life can be a Capital B

I hope your winter festivity of choice was lovely and joyous!!

Lots of things have happened in our family in the past month-ish. Including, but not limited to, getting a new job, the roof leaking, several holidays, multiple musical performances by several household members, a case of pneumonia, an autism diagnosis, and NaNoWriMo.

So… oof. My brain is itchy. And possibly reduced to consistency of wet drier lint. Things are settling into a new rhythm that should be more regular and manageable. Unfortunately, it means fewer blocks of uninterrupted writing time for me. On the other hand, I am not so burned out from my day job that I fantasize about breaking all four of my limbs so I don’t have to go to work. Because, turns out, that’s not a normal thing to wish happens to you. I knew it wasn’t a normal thing but burn-out kind of sneaks up on you and then jumps out with a ‘ta-da’ wearing a sparkly leotard and shoves emotional overwhelm down your throat.

Anyway, writing things have been on hold here for the holiday season, simply because there is no time. I play several Christmas themed concerts, there are parties and shopping, and all the things the Grinch despises. We watched Bass and Rankin Christmas movies, played new games, drank peppermint hot chocolates, went to ZooLights, saw Amal and the Night Visitors, the Nutcracker, and middle band concerts. It’s a wonder there was time to dream of sugar plums at all.

I’ve set a few goals for the new year, which I’ll share more next week, but one of them is to write a haiku every day. Why? Because I am scared of poetry. I took a poetry class in high school and I kind of hated it, got my only ‘C’ in my whole life, and have avoided it ever since. I’m doing a 24 in 24 a la Gretchen Rubin, including her #write24in24. I mean, come on. The #outside23in23 was a given, as I spend A LOT of time outside, but the write 24 in 24 was made for me.

The premise is simple: write for 2 or 4 or 24 minutes a day in 2024. I think this will help when I tell myself ‘oh, I can’t start, I don’t have enough time to…” I love timers, and a timer for 24 minutes is nothing. And I want to work on poetry and a haiku is a tiny little poem.

Now, I know that haikus can be gut punches of emotional power. But, I’m starting with a tiny nibble in a new genre and we’ll see how an entire year goes.

I’ll post them in my Notes. Maybe not every one, but lots of them.