My Annual Over-Estimation of Capacity
a.k.a. January Wishful Thinking Whiplash
January is not the month to seize your dreams
Contrary to centuries of social programming, it is the month of soul crushing dream destruction. Anyone who has ever made a New Year’s resolution knows this. But for me, it has always been a double whammy.
You see, my birthday is smack dab in the girthiest bit of the soul-crushery. Right on the zero-degree Capricorn/Aquarius cusp. Oh, I know. All you astrology peeps are clasping your pearls in shock. My stars scream of soul-crushing, disciplined, chaos.
And yet every freaking December 31st, I get it into my head that this year will be different.
And I get so close y’all.
I really do.
Things start off smooth as butter. But that is almost always because I’m still in the post-holiday dissociative fog and haven’t hit my crash point yet. Or, if I have, I haven’t hit my second one yet after having crashed and rallied around Christmas.
This year’s over-commit? Telling you all that I was totes gonna be done with draft one of Blood Cursed and Book Bound by the end of January.
So cute. So hopeful. So blatantly, willfully naive.
To my credit, I did give you all a “no promises,” warning:
What happened you ask?
Hh-well!
Let me ask you something, first.
Did you know that all of your sinuses can get inflamed at the same time?
Yeah, me neither. Apparently, it’s called “pansinusitis.” And when it gets infected, it’s called a “pansinus infection.” Wild right?
Did you also know that it pisses the hell out of the trigeminal nerve and triggers rolling migraines?
Ooh, ooh! And did you know that whilst you have it:
your kids can ALSO get sick with pneumonia and sinus infections
your husband will have to leave for a work trip for a week
the kids’ school will decide to throw some nasty surprise hoops at you while he is gone
then it will be Christmas break for the kids and you’ll have medication reactions to your antibiotics that make you anemic
and also, megatron dehydrated to the point of triggering a POTs-ish flair that doesn’t go away
because you actually are massively deficient in certain essential vitamins now
And you end up with something called early macrocytic anemia?
Yeah, me neither.
But apparently that is a thing.
…and since I am the “disciplined chaos cusp baby,” I got it all
Plus, I got a bonus, “what is going on with her?” colonoscopy for my birthday to make sure it wasn’t deep infiltrating endometriosis that was stopping me from absorbing nutrients. (It wasn’t).
But is any of that a good reason to not finish the first draft of BCBB like I promised I would?
Um… Imma say yes?
Hear me out.
I still wrote over 30k in an ugly draft (a.k.a., beefy synopsis + major scenes) and have crafted an Act 1 of 16.5k words based on that beefcake synopsis that I actually consider “readable first draft material,” and have already gotten feedback on.
Which isn’t bad. Especially considering the novel should land around 80k. And I exchanged critiques to get the feedback. And, you know, given EVERYTHING ELSE. (Note: snarky emphasis and rage is solely directed toward my inner critic, not at you my dearest of readers.)
Now, did I meet my stated goal? No.
Did my soul get crushed as per usual? Yes.
Does my inner critic hate both me and this public confession of failure article? Good Gods, yes.
But, that’s January. And as I have now unquestionably proven: January is not the month to seize your dreams. It’s the month to size-up your new year’s reality—and figure out how to seize your dreams anyway.
I’ll finish this draft, there is no question about that. It is just a matter of now fitting it in between my new B12 shot regimen, IEP meetings, blood draws, physical therapy sessions, and fun ENT intake appointments.
Just like any aspiring writer, I make it fit where I can.
After that, I’ll get to return to Polly Olly Oxen Free, The Copper Canary, Medium, pounceswithwolves, cmshultz.com, cheshire+jabberwocky, my normally scheduled existential ramblings, and that whole changing my pen name thing. Give or take another setback.
Like most of us, life likes to blindside me this time of year. It really doesn’t care that it is supposed to be a “new beginning” nor that it is “my special day,” when it comes around. I’ve known that for a depressingly long time. And even though I get it into my head that every year will be different, it isn’t like I am forgetting all of that. I just choose to go into each new year with hope—and a conscious denial of probability—because I know I can take the hit when it comes.
If I didn’t pretend that the hits weren’t coming, I’d never have gotten this far.