I Bit Off More than I Could Chew... Yet Again

I started simply enough. A podcast.

Then, I added my books and some short fiction.

Cue the horror movie violin music.

Then serialized fiction.

Essays on the writing life.

Essays on the book coaching life.

A signature course.

Poetry.

Cue the tearing-out-of-hair.

Okay, not literally. I did not rip my hair out like a mourner at an Ancient Greek funeral. I did cut it short, but that’s more about summer approaching than anything else. But what I did to my online efforts? Well, it might be even worse.

I stopped doing anything. I realized I was headed for burnout. And the thing was… this binge of online activities to satisfy people I don’t even know yet (strangers sounds so cold) didn’t happen all at once.

It happened one proverbial plate at a time. And I had no desire to purge like I was at an Ancient Roman bacchanal to make room for more. (The ancients believed, by the way, that if you did not participate in Dionysian binge parties, you would go mad.)

And maybe I felt like I started to. Without any output on the internet, I tried to turn my focus to local efforts, only to meet wall after wall. And so I started to miss getting my voice out there somehow.

I’ve painted myself into a bit of a corner, you see. My ethical standards have made it so that I don’t want to list my books on Amazon. My introversion makes it hard to go out in public or present my whole life in reels. I’d found some solace here on Substack, but then I did what I’ve always done… added project after project that, on its own, would be completely doable, but together felt like trying to run a half-dozen media companies simultaneously.

Will you please help me?

I’m going to come back now, but with only two things to talk about:

• Entrees (For the Writers): I’ll write short, punchy, or deeply honest notes about the architecture of a book. I’ll share a breakthrough I had with a coaching client’s blueprint, or a structural mistake I fixed in my own novel. I’ll keep it conversational (much like this post).
• Desserts (For the Readers): I’ll share a snippet, a mood board, a historical rabbit hole, or a dark-but-hopeful passage from my novel-in-progress. I’ll treat these posts like a public diary of a working novelist.

If you spot me saying I’m going to add more things to the mix… will you please speak up? You have my full permission to call me out.

My challenges in marketing are such that I splinter my efforts, get burnt out, and then throw my hands up in the air and say I don’t want to do any of it anymore. This is a pattern I’ve noticed in myself, and I’m calling myself out here but if you spot me going up for seconds at the digital marketing buffet, feel free to remind me that just because the food is there doesn’t mean I need to eat it.

I don’t need a marketing bacchanal. I also don’t want to be a completely acetic recluse. So thank you, in advance, dear readers and writers, for your help, your willingness to remind me not to bite off more than I can chew, yet again.

P.S. While I am embracing simplicity, my doors are open for the thing that actually fuels me: coaching writers on the structure of their books. If your novel needs a rock-solid foundation before you get lost in the weeds, you can read about my Blueprint coaching right here.

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