vampires, spaceships, and fantastical worlds—the tales of L.E. Teetzel

I started therapy again this year and so far it’s going well, but considering it takes a while for me to truly open up and sometimes I need to be prompted to dig into anything deeper than surface-level thoughts, it’s also slow-going. Thankfully my therapist is good about giving me something new to focus on after each session (since I can only go once a month if I want to keep going all year thanks to the amount of coverage I have through work), and last time she told me to start making decisions with intention so I don’t get down on myself for not getting things done. This was mostly related to writing, since I wanted to write every day and was stressing when I ran out of time and/or energy to do so, but I’m finding that apply it to everything is making a big difference. That difference isn’t all good right now, but it feels like I’m making progress so I think I’ll end up mostly in a good place with it eventually, but I wanted to talk about it a bit, especially in relation to writing.

At the beginning of 2024, I set a goal for myself to write everyday, even if it was only a little bit, and to actually make progress with getting myself published. Two major things have changed about those goals:

1) like I said above, I haven’t been able to write every day
2) I’ve decided to focus on self-publishing my novel rather than going through traditional publishing, so I can have a book out there in the world

I’ll start with the second thing first.

It’s been my dream to get publishing for a long time, but since getting a job in publishing, I’ve realized just how much luck and time are involved in the process and how few people actually decide what gets traditionally published. This isn’t a negative statement; it’s just a fact. So, I decided (with intention and with great thought) that self-publishing my first book, even though it would mean marketing it myself which I know will be very difficult for me, is the way I’m going to go. I want to share this story that I’m proud of, and I want to learn about the publishing industry from this side of things. I also want to learn (and re-learn in some cases) the skills needed to get a book published. I did study some of them while completing my publishing degree, but that was 8-9 years ago now (oof) and a lot of them have evaporated from my memory; or at least gotten shoved to the back of my mind like trinkets forgotten in a drawer.

A life-long goal of mine is to keep learning new skills, so you can see why this route appeals to me more right now than fighting through a lot of rejection to find an agent and then hoping said agent could sell my book to the right publisher at the right moment. Perhaps I’ll go that route in the future, but I’ve also realized it’s not the only way, and it might not even be the best way for the particular novel I want to publish.

Look, I may love vampires a whole hell of a lot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t as many people as there used to be who want to read about vampires.

But I’m going to tell my vampire story and that’s the most important part.

And now that pesky first change to my goals.

Not being able to write every day.

I’ll be honest: failing to meet that goal hurts. It’s such an easy thing, because I didn’t set a word goal to hit each day. My only goal was to write something each day, to get the novel (technically the rewrite of my novel, which I’ll talk about more in a minute) even just a little closer to being done, to being ready for someone else to get their hands on it.

And maybe, if I was someone else, if I was someone with less anxiety and more spoons, that goal would be easy. But I have a full-time job and the regular obligations of single adult life when you have to take care of yourself and your home and your pets all by yourself. I do live with my brother so I don’t have to do 100% of the housework, but other than that, I have to handle everything. And yes, there are writers out there in the same position as me, or with more to deal with, but I am not them, and the fact is even if I have time to write (while still managing to get the 7-9 hours of sleep I need to function properly and feel good), my anxiety doesn’t always let me.

This is where that intention comes in.

Following the advice of my therapist, I was able to intentionally not write while I prepared for an event I was selling stuff at, and I was also able to not get mad at myself for not getting everything I wanted to done. Before that, I was trying to do everything I had to do (work, cook, clean, etc.), prepare for the event (crocheting items, pricing things, packing, etc.), and write. And I was getting so anxious and stressed about not being able to write or only being able to write maybe 100 words (on a good day) that I was actively giving myself headaches and, uh, gastrointestinal issues, shall we say? It wasn’t good. But, once I intentionally decided to not write and to focus on getting ready for the event, I almost instantly felt better, more relaxed.

This shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to me, since I know I’m too hard on myself and expected too much of myself a lot of the time, but hey, it was surprising.

However, now we’re on the other side of that event and I’m struggling to get back to writing. I gave myself a couple days to chill after the event because my introverted ass was EXHAUSTED, and I will admit that I am heavily distracted by the release of the 1.6 update for Stardew Valley and have been seeking comfort in my pixelated farm. Like I have for a long time, I’m struggling with shutting off whatever show I have streaming, turning on music, and digging into the worlds inside my head to get words on the page. It’s like I’m afraid to turn my gaze inward and be vulnerable enough to write (my book deals a lot with anxiety and it’s roughing me up a bit). I’m also struggling with the fact that this rewrite isn’t moving along as fast as I thought it would.

Why am I rewriting a novel that I’d already finished? Because I wrote the finished version over such a long time that it didn’t sound like the same person wrote it all.

It was a big decision, but I knew the book would be better if I fleshed out certain ideas and wrote it with the voice I have now, so that’s what I’m doing. Once again, I probably shouldn’t be surprised that it’s not going super fast (I’ve never been a fast writer and when does writing ever go as fast as you want it to?), but I am.

But I will move forward with intention and I will get this book done. And I will take serious steps towards publication this year.

And I will try to carry intention through all areas of my life. I will endeavour not to get mad at myself when plans I make for myself fall through. I will be nicer to myself in general.

And I will let myself get lost in my farm every once in a while (I’m going for Perfection and I can TASTE it, lol).

I need to remember that learning to live with mental health issues like anxiety is not a linear path, nor is making progress with therapy a linear path, but the most important part is to keep going and to not give up when you end up having to take some steps backward in order to move forward again.

I’m hoping that since gardening season is almost here, having something physical to do, something so connected to the earth, will help me get out of my head and maybe make more progress, make it easier to go back into my head and to tell the stories I want to.

Does that make sense? Does any of this? I don’t actually know, but I wanted to get these words down.

I also wanted to show you this:

This is how I’m tracking the words I’ve written this year and you can see just how much I struggled. The highlighted blue area is when I intentionally wasn’t writing to prepare for the event, the day of the event, and the couple days I gave myself to recover. I have managed to write a little since getting back, but it’s not a perfect record. And I’m trying to accept the fact that that’s okay, but anxious brains suck at that kind of thing.

But all I can really do is keep trying, right?

So that’s what I’m going to do, and that’s what I encourage any of you reading this who are working on something, whether it be something like a book or dealing with your own mental health issues, to do as well.

Take it easy, hot dogs. 💙

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