The Author Burnout Coach
Episode 03: Choose Your POV
Hello writers and welcome to The Author Burnout Coach. Together, we will dismantle the burnout culture in book publishing and reclaim our love of stories. I am your host, Isabel Sterling, and this is episode 3.
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Let’s talk POV - point of view – but not the way you might be thinking. This isn’t a 1st person vs 3rd person debate, and we’re not talking character point of view, either. I’m referring to the point of view (or perspective) you choose when thinking about writing and publishing.
As writers, we’re really good at crafting stories, and that extends past the stories we put into our novels. We’re also really good at telling stories about the circumstances of our lives. Which can be a good thing, but when we let our brains do that subconsciously, it can get us into all sorts of (emotional) trouble.
Last episode I used getting an agent as our example, so let’s continue down that path of publication. Let’s say you signed with your agent and they gave you some notes for a revision. You take the notes, work on the revision, and submit the revised manuscript to your agent. They confirm receipt and then… you hear nothing. For a month.
One possible story–a very common one among writers–might go something like this:
It’s been a month since I sent my manuscript… Something must be wrong. I bet my agent hates it. I revised too fast and didn’t do a good enough job. She’s probably trying to figure out a nice way to tell me I suck. Maybe she even wants to drop me but doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. I knew I should have spent more time figuring out that plot hole. And my characters are probably still too flat and maybe I made the pacing too fast now instead of too slow. Should I email my agent? No, I don’t want to bother her. It’s probably not that bad. Maybe I did SUCH a good job that it’s ready for submission and so she’s taking extra time to create an editor list before getting back to me. Right. Totally. That’s it. *sigh* She probably hates it.
Sound familiar, friends? I know it’s a story that went through my head in the past and it’s one I hear OFTEN from fellow writers and my coaching clients.
But alllll of that is story. It’s just one chosen POV for your situation.
The facts are as follows:
-You submitted a revision to your agent
-Four weeks have passed
That’s… literally it.
None of that means ANYTHING until your brain comes in and creates a story around it. This is what brains do. We interpret everything that happens around us through our own lens and make meaning of what’s going on. And as writers, we get real creative with this, since we do it all the time in our fiction. It’s our superpower…we just sometimes use it against ourselves.
In our fiction, we use POV to help us bring characters to life on the page. It’s why two different characters describing a sunrise will do so in very different ways, DEPENDING on what they make the sunrise mean.
An assassin might describe the red spreading across the sky as spilled blood.
A thief might see the sunrise and think: any self-respecting thief would be heading to bed right now and feel irritated that their job is just getting started.
A romantic character might describe it in a very poetic way while a new parent kept up all night by a screaming baby could find themselves filling with dread at the prospect of facing yet another day of work without any sleep.
In all of these scenarios, the sun rose in the sky. But what it MEANS to each character is different.
The same is true in life. Things happen, circumstances exist, and then we derive meaning from those facts based on how we think about them. This process typically runs on autopilot, but we can–with practice–become aware of what thoughts are running through our heads.
And as we become aware of them, we can start to shift those thoughts and tell ourselves more helpful stories.
So when we turn in a revision and don’t hear anything for a month, we can just as easily think “my agent hates it” or “she hasn’t read it yet”.
If you’re accustomed to jumping to the negative, that will still probably come up first. That doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. Simply take a deep breath and let that thought go. If you think ‘my agent hates it’ you can counter with ‘I don’t know that. It’s equally likely she hasn’t read it yet’
You can also get curious about WHY you immediately assume they hate it or what you’d make it mean if they did. This is a lot of the work I do as a coach for writers, digging beneath the thought to find out what’s really going on. So what if the agent doesn’t like it? So what if you need another round of edits? So what if your agent drops you. What are you making that mean?
The answers to those questions will give you so much insight, and it often comes down to some version of: that will mean I’m a failure and then I’ll feel shame.
Which, PS, is part of the bullshit lies that the patriarchy has implicitly taught us. Western society teaches–through the school system and in basically every other area–that failure is a very bad thing that we must avoid at all cost. Which is such bullshit because we cannot succeed at new things without failing first.
Think about babies learning to walk. This is one of my coach’s favorite metaphors. Babies HAVE to fall and then stand back up again to build the strength they need to walk. We don’t shame babies for falling down and it’s not helpful to shame ourselves for failing at new things, either.
But those fears are super common, so don’t be upset when they come up. The good news, is that you don’t have to keep thinking them or believe them when they visit.
It’s not easy though. The negative shit feels super real, so it often doesn’t feel optional. That’s why it’s so helpful to have a coach who can help you spot the difference. It’s why I have a coach myself. Even knowing all the things I know, it’s so hard to spot your own limiting beliefs.
Think of it like revising your novel. It’s a lot easier to spot plot holes and character inconsistencies in someone else’s work than your own. The closer we are to something, the harder it is to see a new perspective, and we’re the closest to our own brains.
So when you’re going through your day and you find yourself assuming the worst–about how your novel is going, about query rejections or a lack of response from an agent or editor, notice the story you’re telling yourself. Try to pull out the facts of the situation–and the facts by themselves should be boring and neutral (ex: I sent a query letter on DATE NOT all the agents are ignoring me). So pull out those facts and decide what story serves you best.
I highly suggest you write down your stories (aka your thoughts) about writing and publishing. It’s so much easier to spot the difference between the boring facts and all the adjectives and stories we layer on top. I find this especially helpful when my brain is in the shitter about a project, which totally still happens because I have a human brain. Once I uncover those negative stories, it’s so much easier to either have compassion and write through the negative feeling or move to a more neutral or positive place, depending what I’m willing or able to believe.
So, that’s all I have for today, friends. Make sure you’ve subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss a single episode. I’ll be back next week to teach you how to stop refreshing your inbox when you’re waiting for good news.
Until next time…bye!
