Slump isn’t the word for it

Posted on June 12, 2024 by Heather Laura Clarke

This isn’t what’s been happening.

It’s been more of a ‘I-just-can’t-find-time-to-type’ phase.

Every year, I forget about the literal unhinged CHAOS that is an eight-ish week period from April through June. It always includes …

Our daughter’s birthday
Our daughter’s friend birthday party
Our daughter’s family birthday celebration(s)
Our son’s birthday
Our son’s friend birthday party (a big one this year)
Our son’s family birthday celebration(s)
Ballet exams for our daughter
Taekwondo belt test for our son
Dance recitals spread over two weekends (four recitals total, this year)
School presentations/fairs where parents should make an appearance
Year-end ceremonies/awards nights
Out-of-town dance performances
Eighty field trips and special school events
Ten zillion volunteer commitments (mostly dance)
Auditions for summer theatre productions
Auditions for next year’s dance company
Summer camp sign-ups
Mother’s Day
Father’s Day
Easter
Family members’ birthdays
Making it to my weekly Zumba classes (a.k.a. sanity savers)
Oh, right, WORKING A FULL-TIME JOB

I always document my writing progress in planners, and May and June (so far) have not looked very good. Lots of crossed-out days where I didn’t many ANY progress with writing, editing, or querying.

(Don’t ask about my poor neglected author newsletter, whose who ‘Gotta-do-this’ reminder is jostling around so much in my Google Calendar that I’m probably going to put it into labour.)

While I’m still getting up early almost every morning, I haven’t always been sending that time …

Writing
Editing
Plotting
Researching agents
Writing and sending queries
Journaling about ideas

Instead, there have been many early mornings chewed up by …

Making lists
Updating calendars
Working
Organizing kids’ schedules
Paying bills
Planning parties
Buying tickets
Making reservations
Packing (and re-checking) bags
Fixing costumes
Making custom T-shirts (More to come on that. I learned a ton!)

But admittedly, this chaotic season came at the worst possible time because of one very important factor.

I’m between projects.

I have four completed manuscripts to query (but I’m not really querying the LAST NIGHT series at the moment, focusing instead on querying my newer manuscript), and while I have several WIPs (works in progress) I’m not actively writing anything at the moment.

If I was in the middle of drafting (writing) a new manuscript when this busy season began, I strongly suspect I would have still managed to write. Writing is the fun part! The exciting part!

But querying? Well, querying takes a lot of motivation with very, very little reward.

So there were probably (almost definitely) mornings lately where I could have researched agents … could have written query letters … could have sent out queries … but chose to get bogged down in little household tasks instead.

I’m not going to beat myself up over it, because the reality is that being a parent comes first. A lot of PARENT TASKS simply took priority lately. And that’s okay.

Back in business … hopefully?

There are only a couple of weeks of school left, and we seem to be (knock on wood) turning the corner on the annual Clarke Chaos that is April-June. Some of the kids’ activities are over for the year, and others are winding down. The family calendar is still busier than normal, but we’ve checked off most of the biggies.

On Monday, I spent the early-morning hours researching agents and actually sent out FIVE (5) queries before 8 a.m. (I actually got one very polite rejection hours later, and when they’re that quick, I’m more impressed than disappointed.)

I just really need to decide on my next project soon, because there is no high like Getting New Words on The Page.™ And I could use a hit or two right now.