Dear neurodivergent writer,
you asked, I answer! Here’s my tried-and-true method to achieve burnout faster than you can say “writer’s block.” It worked like a charm for me.
1. Write a book and become an indie author.
2. Write a second book and quit your day job so you can finally be:
3. A full-time writer. Yay!
4. Learn everything (yes, everything) about Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Amazon algorithms. Beat yourself up if your expertise isn’t top-notch.
5. Follow advice from all the self-proclaimed marketing gurus and become an expert in Facebook and Amazon ads. Master ad copy, custom audiences, keywords, blurbs, and covers. Beat yourself up if your expertise isn’t top-notch.
6. Naturally, don’t forget to become an expert in BookBub ads, too.
7. Learn everything about newsletter building and marketing. Beat yourself up if your expertise isn’t top-notch.
8. Write, edit, and publish a new book every three to six months. This is what pros call sustainable. Develop constant anxiety about your writing being offensive to some people, or the book sucking massively, or even just partially.
9. Attempt to become a cover design expert every time you publish a new book, despite failing the last five times. Beat yourself up about your amateur design skills. Sure, you never formally studied arts — but try harder
10. Develop constant anxiety about being a hack. One day, people will find out.
11. Do everything simultaneously.
12. Check your sales ten times a day so you can:
13. Recalculate your ROI daily, followed by panic attacks because you’re a full-time writer who needs to feed your family. What if today is the day everyone realises that your writing sucks? How many books will you sell tomorrow? Zilch.
14. Obsessively check your Amazon and Goodreads reviews to keep feeding your anxiety about writing sucky books and offending someone.
15. Agonize over all the reviews below 3 stars. They prove your writing sucks. Also: Some reviewers get the facts wrong, like ornithology and botany in the 1880s. You could explain it to them. It’s so hard not to explain the facts to people. But it’s not professional to reply to a review of your own book. So you have to agonize for weeks about the poor souls out there who don’t have the correct data.
16. Write a blog because clearly, you’re not doing enough.
17. Engage on every social media channel because YOU. ARE. NOT. DOING. ENOUGH.
18. And whatever you do, do not ask for help!
