Sun and clouds
on a personal note
April 2024. I was soaring. Running on three hours of sleep, pin balling from one city to the next, promoting my second novel, Friends in Napa, and thrilled, thrilled to get the word out and be celebrated. Some authors shy away from this part of the process but not I, I have an unhealthy ego and sense of delusion that makes me relish parties thrown in my name.
I knew I would come crashing down. It happened after the release of The Goddess Effect, when I came down with a cough so uncontrollable that it interrupted the Q&A during the last leg of the tour, in Washington, D.C. (Sorry to everyone who attended.) I was sick for a month. November into December 2023. Even after my symptoms abated, I felt listless. Also vaguely panicked. I had agreed to deliver the first draft of Friends in Napa by February 7th (my birthday) and felt sapped of inspiration and motivation.
A previously plotted outline and the sheer terror of failing to deliver compelled me to finish that first draft, which, frankly, sucked. Major plot holes. Crudely drawn sidekicks. But first drafts are like that — they get better as editors weigh in and you take time away from the world you built, come back, reconsider it with fresh eyes.
Whatever ennui I felt in the winter of 2023 (the winter of my discontent) evaporated like fog under a rising sun once I hit send on that first draft. It helped that I was going to Turks & Caicos for a milestone birthday, and it’s hard to be depressed in a crystalline, bathwater warm body of water, but it is possible, as I found out last summer.
June 21st, 2024. In the South of France for work, yes, but also fun, it would be a crime to not have fun in the South of France in June. I meet a woman who is also a writer. She seems to have it all. She is beautiful, successful, and has a rich family life. She seems happy. Happier than me. My husband and I are talking about having children and she has two as well as worthy advice that she readily dispenses. I envy her sense of self possession, her confidence. That she seems further along, in the game of life, than me.
I tuck away this envy and return to Los Angeles. Prior to going to France, I had started my third novel and wrote 25,000 words in a giddy spree during the first three weeks of June. I took a break for the trip, figured my zeal for the project would return when I did.
It did not. Somewhere over the Arctic Circle — or hell, maybe it was in the Med itself — it evaporated. I had another trip coming up, in early July. Maybe things would be better after that.
They weren’t. By the end of July, I was panicking again, because I had agreed to deliver a first draft of my third book to my editors by September. (I think it was September. I’ve largely blocked that date out of my mind because, on some level, I’m still ashamed that I was unable to meet my deadline.)
I called my agent. I explained that I was having writers block. Previously, I had not believed in writers block. Those who had it, I privately thought, were just lazy. Now I realized how wrong I had been. I could not move forward with my manuscript because I did not have the passion for the project that I once had.
My agent told me that this was normal, a version of the sophomore slump. She said it would be no problem to extend my deadline to January 2025. Phew. More time. And yet. I spent much of the fall staring at my screen, willing the words to come. I tried outlines. I tried character sketches. I started Stephen King’s On Writing but stopped around the point the doctor punctures his eardrum. I brainstormed. I came up with new concepts that I tried to distill into pithy, pitchy paragraphs. None of them got the words flowing.
My inability to make progress on the book affected other parts of my life. Every part, really. I accepted an assignment that I shouldn’t have. It blew up in my face and made me question my ability to make decisions. I struggled to respond to text messages, let alone write emails or articles. I stopped sharing on social media but scrolled more than ever, feeling worse about myself with every swipe of the thumb. I remained largely in my head during a long ago planned trip to Italy to celebrate the wedding of good friends. You don’t deserve this, I thought. You haven’t done your work.
In public, I put on a smile; privately, I reeled. By October, I was a shell of myself. I dreaded getting out of bed and looked forward to the moment I’d be able to justify climbing back in. I declined invitations to parties, lunches, dinners, drinks. I spent long hours scrolling on LinkedIn, wondering if I ought to abandon writing and get another job, any job, something that would give me new purpose, that would force me out of the house and away from the blinking cursor that taunted me in my sleep. I almost bailed on a planned book reading in Napa, loathe to gin up enthusiasm for myself or my work. I went only because it would have been more work to make up an excuse than to abide by my commitment and go.
Years ago, when I was living in New York, I saw a therapist. We didn’t click. I largely wrote off therapy, figured I didn’t need it. Now, unrecognizable to myself and willing to go to great lengths to reclaim my former lust for life — I spoke with a healer who works with sand but did not want to cough up $400 for a session, given that I had barely anything coming into my bank account — I reconsidered. Thankfully, my health insurance covers therapy. I figured I ought to avail of it.
I did not click with the first therapist I was matched with, a woman in Bakersfield with a smoker’s rasp who sent me a 35-page worksheet about eliminating anxious thoughts (“I know what you need,” she said, flapping her hand like I was the 10th such patient she’d seen that day. Maybe I was!) By this point, I’d learned enough about therapy to know that, like dating, you’ve got to dance with a few frogs before you find your chosen one. I went back into the database and stumbled on Anne (not her real name). I asked if she could meet that day (via Zoom). She couldn’t, but we set a date for Halloween, and I counted down the days while simultaneously trying to reel myself in, knowing that one session, even with the most talented of therapists, could not cure all.
Within minutes of Anne materializing on my screen, I knew I’d found the one. Of course, one session did not restore me to my previous self. But as I unpacked my problems, she offered ways to shift my thinking so that I might find a solution and get to a place where I could harness my creativity and enjoy writing again. For example: instead of scolding myself for scrolling on Instagram, could I ask myself what I was looking for on Instagram? Distraction, inspiration, something else? (There are no wrong answers.) She also helped me rediscover simple practices that make me happy. Morning journaling (before doing anything with my phone). Meditation. Walks in nature. Taking photos. Needlepointing in front of the TV.
I had written off the notion of a “gratitude practice” as social media mumbo jumbo; the type of live-laugh-love trope that did not apply to me. Anne helped me see that just because something is popular on social media doesn’t mean it’s not worthy, and that a gratitude practice does not have to involve literally listing all the things you are thankful for (although, it’s absolutely fabulous if you want to — whatever works!). By no means am I “cured,” if such a thing exists. I see Anne weekly. Some days I adhere to my practices, some days I don’t.
Why are you saying all of this, my mother is surely wondering. For one, writing helps me process what happened. I told myself that I could draft this whole thing and decide at the end if I wanted to publish it, which brings me to point two.
I say this because, at the risk of repeating what (I hope) we all know to be true, my life, as well as the lives of many other people, looks pretty rosy on the Internet. It is, and I am grateful for a lot. But no one is without their struggles and all of the above would not fit into an Instagram caption about the year that was. There were highs and there were lows, and thanks to Anne I’m [knocks on wood] back on the upswing, able to write and socialize and take pleasure in existing rather than feeling like an unwilling passenger.
I say this because if you are struggling, know that you are not alone. There are brighter days ahead. The sun will shine again.
Sheila! Thank you so much for baring all of this. I identify so closely with so much of what you've shared - feeling "behind" or uninspired. It's amazing how much voicing those feelings, to a therapist or friends etc, can soften the way you view your own feelings and also pull you closer to others. Cheers to a fresh start in 2025!