Beginning Again…Again

The TP Diaries, March 2026

Welcome to the March 2026 edition of The TP Diaries. Once a month, I share an update of what’s going on with my writing. This is NOT a glowing record of the perfect writing routine to guilt you into writing better. Think of this as the TP you need for your shitty draft. I get stuck all the time. I skip days. I change my mind. I start over. When I write, I make a MESS.

But, by reading my diary, you will also see the strategies I use to pick myself back up again and keep writing anyway.

Have I mentioned yet that I dislike writing first drafts?

Well, I dislike writing first drafts.

Unfortunately, it’s a necessary step in writing books. I’ve been on a pretty meandering writing path since June of 2025, dipping in and out of revisions on one of my more developed projects, and toggling between early drafts of several others. Because I was struggling to commit to a particular project, I asked my agent to help me pick one.

We landed on a premise for a contemporary queer rom com that we both were excited about, and in January, I committed to drafting.

And then, I got stuck.

Photo by Fr0ggy5 on Unsplash

I’ve spent the last three months trying to turn a one-sentence pitch into an actual story. Every time I think I’ve figured out the basic plot and characters, I struggle to write any scenes. At first, I thought this was just my normal aversion to first drafts. But then I realized there was a deeper problem. Mechanically, the story ideas I had “worked,” but I wasn’t interested enough to write them, because these ideas weren’t tapping into the deep, emotional undercurrent that drives me to write.

So, I took a step back, did some thinking to figure out why the original idea felt so compelling to me. Inspiration struck, and a prologue wrote itself. I thought this was my big breakthrough and that the draft was finally going to get easier.

But…no.

Photo by Fr0ggy5 on Unsplash

Because a few days later, it was time to write scenes and I once again found myself bored at the prospect. I just didn’t care about these characters or these stories. Worse, I realized that I didn’t care about any of my other stories either. In fact, I had stopped even telling myself stories in my head to entertain myself.

I have been here before. I have felt these feelings before. In my months-long self-excavation of my writing psyche, I had finally hit the bedrock: I was burnt out.

The burnout diagnosis wasn’t surprising. Just like the last time I had creative burnout, I’d been running full throttle for a long time without any meaningful break.

The only solution for burnout is rest. Even though I objectively know that rest is important, a combination of excessive cognitive energy and not enough hobbies makes rest hard for me. I get bored too quickly, which makes me grumpy.

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My Inner Border Collie

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So, I knew from past experience that taking a complete break from writing only recharges me if I can replace writing with something else that is highly stimulating – such as travelling. And, since that isn’t on the table right now, I knew I needed a way to recharge my creativity, without taking a complete break, and without making the burnout worse.

Enter: Project Sparkles

I’m calling my compromise Project Sparkles. It is a variation on the method that helped me recover from creative burnout in 2023. For the moment, the goal of writing isn’t to finish anything, but, rather, to have fun. I know that when I retrain my brain to remember that writing is fun, I’m increasingly motivated to write, which means that instead of dreading creativity as a chore, my mind starts making up stories for the fun of it.

Step 1: Lower the Bar Way, Way Down

For Project Sparkles, I’ve given myself targets that are easy for me to hit. Five days a week, I’ll write for one hour as my first task of the day. In my current schedule, one hour in the morning five days a week is a very easy box to check, so, I’m setting myself up for success.

Step 2: Make it Fun

In that one hour, it doesn’t matter what I work on, or how much I get done as long as it’s fun: another super low bar to clear.

I started by working on development of a goofy, episodic web comic idea that’s been kicking around in the back of my head. This has been a great low-stakes way to reawaken my creativity, because it’s a completely new medium to me and a completely new structure. I have no expectation that it will be a fast process, or for it to even go anywhere. It’s pure fun.

After letting myself have fun with that for a few days, my muse timidly came forward and whispered that what she really wanted to talk about was the high fantasy novel I’ve been tinkering with for years. So, I wrote some messy, random scenes for that book to explore the gender identity of one of the characters – and that’s been fun too.

Step 3: Refill the Creative Well

When talking to one of my critique partners about my burnout, she observed that I need a chance to just live my life in order to have something to write about. Another book coach friend of mine talks about the importance of finding the “sparkles” outside of writing. I know from past experience that the combination of novelty and lots of quiet thinking time help me a lot – which is one of the reasons that travel usually gives me a creative boost.

Since travel isn’t on the agenda right now, and I’m too tired to take on anything truly challenging, I’m trying something easier. I’ve committed to leaving my apartment at least once a week for something other than walking the dog or running an errand. I don’t necessarily have to go anywhere new or far away, but, I’m fortunate to live within easy reach of many excellent coffee shops, museums, gardens, and specialty stores. A taste of a new environment every week, along with thinking time on the walk or train ride should help me recharge.

Photo by IRIS AVI on Unsplash

When will I start “working” again?

To be clear, I am working. I keep myself very busy with my coaching/ editing business and basic life maintenance. And the writing I’ve been doing is still work, even if it isn’t building on an imminently sale-able project.

A common piece of writing advice I heard as a newbie writer was that it was better to write regularly (i.e. “every day”) than to wait for inspiration to strike. There is some value to this advice. After all, there are parts of every writing project that suck that you just have to muddle your way through. And, there are days when you might start out feeling uninspired, and inspiration won’t strike unless you start writing.

But there’s a difference between giving yourself a little push because you mildly don’t feel like writing, versus showing up every day and making yourself write even when you have zero inspiration or “sparkles” left. I think that trying to hustle and grind your way through an empty tank is much more damaging than only writing when you feel inspired. In one situation, the worse thing that happens is that it takes you a long time to finish your book. In the other, the worst-case scenario is you get so fed up with writing that you never want to do it again.

Photo by Tony Tran on Unsplash

I’m about a week into Project Sparkles, and I can already tell that it is helping. But there is also still a voice in the back of my mind urging me to stop playing in the sandbox and put my efforts towards something “real.” There is a part of me that is imagining what it will be like to go back to my marketable project, and I can already feel the sparkles draining away – indicating that it definitely isn’t time yet.

There’s a lot of reasons this voice is there. I do need to eventually finish another book if I want to build my author career. There are a lot of cultural scripts I’m still untangling for myself that place higher value on the art I can sell than the art that’s just for me. (And I won’t lie, I do want to make money doing this.)

I have chosen to make monetary investments in my career by paying for classes, conferences, coaching, and communities. I made an investment in my career by walking away from a more stable, higher paying job to take a risk on self-employment. I am making an investment in my career by saving money to hire a publicist when it’s time to market my books.

Project Sparkles is another investment in my career, albeit one made in time rather than money.

Taking care of my mind and body may result in fewer finished projects in the short-term, but they’ll preserve my ability to keep writing for many decades. I know the projects I do finish will be better because I gave myself time to recharge. Plus, most importantly, I’m going to have more fun. And, let’s face it, this isn’t that lucrative of a career, and we may be increasingly competing with AI to do it, so, if it isn’t fun, then, what’s the point?