The burnout is burning

Hello my loves 🤠 

It’s Cowboy Carter weekend here in NYC, and alas, I do not have tickets, so I’m sitting at home as the sun sets and the house fills with that special type of light. You know the one. The one that comes when the sun is a little weak and watered-down because it’s been on-and-off raining all day, but it’s also sinking beyond the horizon. It’s bright and white and it feels like summer.

The dishwasher is running and I’m playing The Tortured Poets Department and I’m writing a newsletter. How are y’all?

This past Monday, we dropped another podcast episode! This week, we spoke with author Kara Kennedy (hi Kara!) about setting, and it was marvelous.

On Saturday morning I spent two hours on a video call with my podcast co-host and partner in crime, and we planned out the end of season 1 and all of season 2 and I’m just…so stinking excited. I love this podcast. Let me stop rambling now and dive into the meat of this newsletter ☺️ 

From the heart 💗

Apparently I’m still burnt out

I miss working on a book.

For about a week there I was excited and drafting again. I wrote about 7,000 words of a new paranormal romantasy for adults. And then my brain and body remembered that I’m still somewhat burnt out ☹️ 

So I’m taking another break from book projects. I’ll do revisions when I get my edit letter for REVENGE, but in the meantime, I’m trying to focus on…not writing books. I’m working on some articles and I’m back on my coloring bullshit and, as ever, things are percolating.

But I miss it.

Every time I take a break from writing, I worry that I’ll never finish another book. I fear that the struggles I’m having with the current project are actually endemic, a sign from the universe that I’m not meant for this career, not meant for this creative pursuit, not meant for this joy.

Because that’s what writing is for me — joy. Even when it’s hard. Sometimes especially when it’s hard.

I don’t like visual puzzles, but sometimes writing is a puzzle. When I’m working on a scene, an essay, even a newsletter, sometimes the writing flows and the words spill onto the page with ease. Sometimes, though, it’s harder. I have to cut and paste and rearrange paragraphs. I have to change the POV for a whole chapter. I have to delete 15 minutes of painstaking work and try a new direction.

It’s annoying!!! It’s frustrating, but it scratches an itch in my brain that wants to solve problems, that wants to break things down to their essence and figure out what makes them tick.

I don’t have the brain for engineering or making things with my hands, but my approach to story and writing sometimes reminds me of anecdotes I heard growing up, about people obsessed with taking apart computers and motorcycles to rebuild them.

Listen, if you set me in front of a motorcycle and said I couldn’t leave until I took it apart and put it back together, well, have fun planning my funeral because I’ll be dying in that garage. But if you set me in front of a book — mine or someone else’s — and tell me to diagnose what’s working (or not) in the story? Baby let’s gooo. We’re cooking now!

Which is all a long-winded way of saying I miss writing, lol. But I’m finding joy in talking craft on my podcast, and I’m finding joy in coming up with a new interview series that I’ll be launching on my YouTube in the summer.

I’m reading great books — romance novels, fantasy novels, young adult and adult novels, all sorts of stories written by all sorts of people — and they’re tickling my brain in such a delightful way.

So maybe it’s okay. Maybe it’s okay that I’m taking a break from writing my own books. Even when the sense of urgency hits me and I feel the frenetic fear of running out of time for my career to look the way I want it to…I can remember that I’m not actually stopping. I’m just recovering. I’m just healing. I’m just refilling my well.

From the question box ❓

Tips for staying sane while you’re waiting for writing feedback / query or sub responses?

Lol. LMAO, even.

My first tip is recognize that you’re simply not going to stay sane. Not really. Not if by “sane” you mean “able to forget that there’s a story of yours out in the world and people are reading it oh god.” Instead, I would say accept that it’s going to be hard. You’re going to have moments where you’re simply pulling at your hair and screaming into a pillow about it.

Give yourself grace in those moments. Sending your work out to betas, to agents, to editors, to readers at large, is genuinely a big deal! And it’s brave AF! So pat yourself on the back for doing a BIG SCARY THING, and then give yourself a lil treat, and set a timer for five minutes. You can go insane until the clock chimes and then you’ve gotta rein it in.

Another tips is the tried-and-true advice to work on something new. It can be hard, of course, because breaks are super important, but if the query trenches or sub hell is dragging, there’s nothing more helpful than falling in love with a new project. It doesn’t just distract you; it kind of takes some of the pressure off the book that’s out in the world already.

Find a hobby that has nothing to do with publishing! I color but really I want to save up to do more pottery classes. Maybe you can take a dance class, or go horseback riding, or embroider, or go for runs — anything that gets your mind off the books and your eyes off of your email and social media, lol.

You’ve got this!

From the shelf 📚

Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, by Ashley Herring Blake

What a truly gorgeous and utterly delightful book. This is book three in the Bright Falls series that starts with Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, and dare I say the books in this series just…keep getting better, one after the other?

I looooved Stevie and Iris together! I loved how anxious Stevie is, cause hello relatable, and I loved how Iris was so very good at helping Stevie through it.

This book is sexy, steamy, sapphic goodness.

Alla prossima 👋

It’s May 25, 2025, and somehow, Palestinians in Gaza are still being bombed and killed with impunity. It has been over a year and a half of this reality. This week, the number 14,000 was circulating — that’s the number of children at risk of starvation in Gaza. There were pictures, too, of gaunt babies — BABIES — who haven’t been able to eat because food trucks have been strangled from entering the territory.

Ms. Rachel caught a lot of hate for advocating for a ceasefire for Palestine’s children. Tell me, why are we okay with these children being starved, bombed, murdered, abandoned? Because we think their government has done something atrocious? That is NOT the children’s fault. And what of the innocent women, the innocent men, who are being killed and treated as “collateral” in a “war”?

“This is war,” says someone on Threads, and I feel a scream building within my chest because if this is war why are we not doing everything in our power to ensure that there is never another war?? If this is war, why are we okay with it? If this is war, then let there never be another war, for fuck’s sake.

“This is war,” and you’re a soulless ghoul.

I stop and take a deep breath to recent myself.

If you’ve got extra money this week or in the next months, I’d love it if you could find a family in Gaza to donate to so they can get food. They need us, and we are failing them, and my heart breaks every day over this truth.

— Karis xoxo