Six months. Wow. *dusts everything*
My writing output comes in gusts, my revision energy burns intensely and then vanishes, my belief I know what the hell I'm doing peaks and plummets. I guess it's not too surprising my blogging would follow the same pattern. Blogging as phoenix.
There's one recurring lesson I should like to remember before it trips me up again: I may feel like I'm burning out and being reborn, but I'll always carry the seed of who I am. Not even a phoenix (or at least not even this phoenix) loses herself entirely. And it feels like I'm retaining more and more of the useful, good and productive part of self each cycle.
This latest fallow period was a combination of being very busy finishing a revision, followed by a relieved slump that slowly slid into a deep and murky depression.
Early this week I attended a gathering with an author, and realized afterwards that I was *happy* and felt like myself again. It was a momentary gleeful recognition of a confident self, someone I felt I hadn't seen in decades.
What happened? That I felt I was treated as a colleague by a well-known author is no small part of that, I'm certain. But I'm frequently treated as a colleague by others I respect, so that's not all of it. I'd successfully navigated a social situation I was uneasy about, so that could have contributed (if nothing else, euphoria I wasn't going to spend the rest of the week beating myself up for saying something stupid. That is not a *small* win in my life).
It wasn't a sudden surge in exercise; I've been struggling with various minor health inconveniences that have dissuaded useful exercise. I've been eating yogurt again, due to a heavy cycle of antibiotics. There's some research that suggests a connection between depression and unhealthy bacterial gut populations. (And a fascinating one that links a combination--fungus and bacteria--to severe intestinal disruptions like Crone's, but I digress). Perhaps I should add yogurt with my meals for the next two months and see how that pans out.
And maybe this episode of bleakness has finally burned itself out. It fought back; the good mood didn't last. But I've made more revision progress this week than I have for two weeks, so I'm pulling out of it. I've gotten very useful feedback from beta readers that has opened some possibilities for me, and I'm ready to go forward. I'd hoped to be at this stage three months ago, but I'm here now, so... onward.
