Burnt Out
On Music, Illness and Overused sayings
One of my favourite musicians, 'Dodie', has a song called 'Burnt Out'. As with most of her music, the lyrics are fantastic, but there's this one line that I keep coming back to.
"I am burnt out. I'm full of smoke. It slips through my cracks and I start to choke."
Too often do I viscerally feel these lyrics. That sense of drowning, of suffocating under the weight of my own empty promises. Goals I set and let pass by, projects and passions that float by the wayside until they have gone too far downstream to catch. I fill myself up with the smoke of what I wish I could do and then choke on the bitter reality of my own limitations.
I am a dreamer, as most artists are. I'm great with ideas, with creative possibilities, but not so good at action. Don't get me wrong here. If I have a deadline or a target, or something that needs doing, it gets done. But when it comes to my own creative practice, I am so very often full of smoke.
Recently I have been quite ill. My back, my stomach, and now my throat; a trifecta of pain. This has meant that anything unnecessary for my day-to-day has had to be put on hold, this blog included. Whilst I understand that the average individual hasn't been waiting with bated breath for my return I feel I owe you all an apology nonetheless. For those who take the time to read, thank you, and sorry for the radio silence. I promise to do better, if only in a wishful way.
I'm good at over-extending. At setting out vast plans that seem oh-so-achievable at the time, and turn out to be far more than I can handle. I suppose it's not an unusual issue but it always catches me off-guard. I'm fine right up until the moment the scales tip and then, without warning, I'm struggling.
This is why my novel has ended up sitting on the back-burner for, well, as long as I've had it. The editing process has always come second to something else, and it has annoyed and frustrated me. I write so many other things that in the end, all I have left for the work I really care about is smoke.
I have lived with this feeling of being burnt out for a while now. I know I'm probably not alone in that, it's the creative curse to over-reach, but it has made things very difficult. I keep meaning to get back to what I love and instead I'll get sick or I'll get busy or any of a whole other host of things. I'm like a broken clock, the creative cogs inside my head, worn down until I can barely keep time.
But broken clocks are right at least twice a day and a positive mindset can be the difference between a failure and a success. It is for this reason, on the Celtic festival of Imbolc and the beginning of Spring, that I have decided to set myself a new, more achievable task.
Every week, starting today, I am going to be editing a section of my Novel. I will update you all here on my progress each Wednesday, alongside extracts, character concepts, and song lyrics that will go up on my Patreon. The aim is, that in setting a structured weekly basis for these edits, I will be able to run through them that much faster, and finally stop putting it all off. Please join me, here and on Patreon as I take this step forward.
I am so sick of being full of smoke. I think it's time I gave you all something you can really dig your teeth into.
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