Reflections of Life, Part 1
by Karen S. Wiesner
In looking back over the course of my life as an author
who's looking forward to becoming an artist in retirement, I've learned to slow
down and reflect on the past, savor the present, and look forward to the future.
Interspersed through these ruminations, I'll include some of my own most
apropos sketches.
For the last several
years, I've felt directed toward finding a better balance in my life. There's
no denying I've spent most of my time on this earth cultivating a crash and
burn lifestyle--in my work and
"play" activities. Those who know me would agree that I can only be
described as a person who gets things
done (emphasis and attitude in that phrase, please). In all honestly, I
took great pride in my accomplishments at many points in my life before I was
laid low. You will see that--and even some smugness--reflected in these
reminiscences. I apologize and ask for you to indulge me just this once, as
this is something of a capsulation of my entire life, and I have little more to
show for myself than these brief achievements. I'm forever reminded of the
countless, plentiful desert periods in my life when I was absolutely certain I
was a fraud without a speck of talent, natural or otherwise. Those by far
supersede any glimpse of self-worth.
In any case, during my "leisure",
I've been known to read in excess of 400 books in a single year. Yes, you read
that right, and, yes, I know there are only 365 days in a year. In my work,
which has been writing (professionally for the last 26 years) I've actually
been compared to a computer. Only that accurately describes how quickly I
process and perform my tasks. Whereas most writers can finish a novel or two a
year and rare ones can produce one or two more than that, I've spent the
majority of my career completing at least five full-length novels (ranging from
60,000 to 100,000 words plus) and five novellas (nearly all close to 40,000
words long) every single year.
If I had to be honest,
I'd admit that I barely broke a sweat most of the time I was accomplishing these
feats. In fact, reading and writing books was only part of what I was doing at
any given time. Along with writing books, every year I made promotion of my published
works a full-time job, along with leading a few writers' groups in which I
coordinated numerous endeavors. I also wrote countless freelance assignments
for many magazines, cranked out weekly or monthly columns for various
publications, wrote blurbs, and critiqued and edited the material of other
authors, as well as designed covers for my books and those of fellow authors.
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| Karen Wiesner Sketch: Still Life with Books |
My secret: Early in my
writing, I formulated an approach to writing that I've documented step by step
in my reference titles. This technique allowed me to "work in stages"
and accomplish so much more than I would have if I'd written each book from
start to finish, back to back, one at a time. Essentially, I was always writing
multiple books at a time, each in distinct stages of the writing process. For
the most part, that technique ensured that I avoided burnout altogether. More
accurately, I was able to sidestep it, provided I gave myself at least three
vacations a year, each lasting 2-3 weeks long and forcing me to curtail all
writing activities during them.
As long as I took those
vacations as prescribed, I could indefinitely juggle the heavy workloads I
assigned myself the rest of the year. Most often, I indulged in my favorite
pastimes during my recuperation times: Reading and playing videogames. Here,
too, I hit it hard. As befitting a crash and burn personality like mine, I
would spend most of my waking hours, staying up late, playing a game or series
of games or plowing through a shocking amount of books from my To Be Read mountain.
This was the only way I was able to cope with the stress of just how much I was
accomplishing in a year's time. Mind you, if I took my vacations when I needed
to, for as much time as I needed to, I barely felt the weight of my work at all
other times. In these 26 years, my running tally is 146 books published, 152
books written, and, incidentally, nearly 130 awards nominated for or won. This
is the testament to my dedication in accomplishing all my writing goals.
As anyone can imagine,
breaking this lifelong habit of crash and burn was nearly impossible. As I said
at the start of this essay, I've felt myself being directed and redirected, gently,
sometimes almost imperceptibly, for years. It wasn't a lesson I learned all at
once, but it is one I had to relearn countless times it really stuck. Many sentiments fit how it felt to be taught
something I assumed I'd mastered only to fall back into the same bad habits
that are seemingly my own unique factory resets: Embarrassment, amusement,
frustration, bewilderment, even shock at my own ignorance and blindness as to
what's happened to bring me back to square one.
It's unfortunate that,
to get me to the point where I even agreed to submission in the first place, I
had to be broken and re-broken. Strangely, I've come to enjoy (in some ways, at
least) the slow-down--I, who once considered herself with no small amount of
pride, the Mighty One with Super Powers.
Next week I'll talk about what it took to bring about change
in the crash and burn lifestyle that dominated most of my adult life.
Karen Wiesner
is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her
website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Find out more
about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor
Visit her
publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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