Season 1 Episode 5: Why You Stopped Writing (It Might Not Be Burnout)
Season 1, Episode 5
Authors disappear for different reasons than they burn out, and the way back differs by wiring. Heartweavers leave because life declared itself priority one and the relationships around them weren't sustainable. Wildscribes leave after proving to themselves they couldn't make it, and then every small act reinforces staying gone. Mythmakers never technically leave — they disappear into work, building things that go nowhere. LoreKeepers keep going on ritual until the results don't come, then stop without ever asking what got misinterpreted.
Show notes:
Coming back isn't like riding a bike. You don't slip into an old pair of shoes and carry on. There's a lot to rebuild, and most authors don't allow for that — because we are terrible at giving ourselves grace, especially after spending years trying to prove everyone wrong and then hitting the point where it looks like they were right.
This episode is about why each House vanishes, and what the road back actually requires. Including a LoreKeeper client who did everything right and still didn't catch — and the thing I only figured out last week, after twenty-four years in this industry.
In this episode:
Why disappearing and burning out are different problems
Heartweavers: when life declares itself priority one, and the relationship audit nobody wants to do
Wildscribes: proving you couldn't hack it, and finding the siren song underneath the genre
Mythmakers: work-procrastination, and why every rabbit hole feels correct
LoreKeepers: doing everything right and still missing, because instructions are open to interpretation
The trope mistake that breaks reader trust, and what it costs in read-through
Why we don't sell products, we sell experiences
Questions Authors Ask About Disappearing
Is disappearing from writing the same thing as burnout?
Not always. Plenty of authors vanish for reasons that have nothing to do with exhaustion — a move, a marriage, a divorce, kids, a life event that took over. The coming-back process is similar, but the cause isn't, and treating every absence as burnout means solving the wrong problem.
Why is coming back after years away so hard?
Because it isn't like riding a bike. Whatever you had — the habit, the audience, the confidence, the sales — has to be rebuilt, and most authors don't allow for the rebuilding. They expect to slip back in, find they can't, and read that as proof they never should have left.
I stopped writing because my books didn't sell. Where do I start?
Start by finding what actually calls you, not what made money last time. Forcing yourself back into a genre that no longer fits makes it nearly impossible to move at all. Find the emotional focal point underneath the genre — that's broad enough to carry a lot of different books.
Why do I keep working on everything except my book?
That's a form of disappearing. It never looks like quitting, because you're still working constantly — just on the wrong things, and every rabbit hole feels justified while you're in it. A deadline you actually feel is usually the fix.
Transcript — Season 1, Episode 5
Hey, welcome back. Today we're talking about how and why authors disappear — which isn't always the same thing as burnout. Sometimes we disappear for reasons that have nothing to do with it.
But when we're coming back, the approach is similar. Because it isn't like riding a bike. It isn't like putting on an old pair of shoes. You don't just slip in and find everything is hunky-dory. There's a lot that has to be rebuilt.
I don't think a lot of authors allow for that.
One thing I keep repeating: we are terrible at giving ourselves grace. I think it's because so many of us come from a place where we fought hard to prove everybody else wrong and ourselves right — and then we hit a point where it looks like everyone else was right and we were wrong.
At least, that's the information we think we're getting.
Every one of us disappears for a different reason. Let's touch on each.
Heartweavers
I'm starting here because they're the ones reaching out to me most for actual help. The ones most interested right now are the Wildscribes, but Wildscribes don't want to talk. They want to gather information. Which makes sense — they're connectors who need to take something in and see how it links up before they can hold a conversation about it.
The Heartweavers who disappeared didn't all go because of burnout. A lot of them went because of major life events. Moves to different states. Getting married. Getting divorced. Getting a kid. Getting several kids.
If you've got babies or toddlers or teenagers at home, understand: that's hard. That is hard.
Living with people is difficult. Understanding how to be a person alongside other people is not easy. Which is probably one of the reasons we find sci-fi so intriguing — you've got people trapped in a tight space who can't leave and have to work out how to not eat each other, not punch each other, not kill each other, or want to kill themselves. It's a giant psychological experiment in the one place where everything is already trying to kill you.
For the Heartweavers I've been talking to, and for me: every part of our lives revolves around other people. Introvert or extrovert, our well-being is bound up in the people around us.
Which means sometimes we have to look at those people and ask whether they're good for us.
A lot of the ones coming to me — not all, but a lot — have realized that some of their most precious relationships aren't healthy. There's a lot that revelation brings up.
There are ways to bring things back around. But often this isn't something you can take ownership of and solve on your own, because a relationship needs both ends. A lot of it falls into therapist work, and I'm not good there. No experience, no training. Although I think it'd be fun for about a minute — right up until I heard the same thing over and over and got frustrated. Which is very much like raising teenagers, so I already have the experience.
When Heartweavers disappear from writing, it's usually because life walked in and said: I'm priority number one, not this.
So the conversation, if they want to come back, is: what truly is priority number one? What's number two? And how do I genuinely support number one and myself?
Because for a Heartweaver, priority number one is never themselves. Ever.
Wildscribes
I have a lot of Wildscribes who disappeared for years. A couple for close to a decade. They're coming back now, looking at how to do it, feeling how exciting that could be.
But they left because they'd proved to themselves and to the world that they couldn't hack it.
Rebuilding that trust is difficult, because the situation compounded — zero sales. Starting from nothing is very hard.
And what I keep finding is that every act reinforces the idea that they should just stay disappeared.
So what I do is try to prove them wrong. As they're moving through this rediscovery, I invite them onto different roads.
They'll say, no, no, no, I only write this. Okay — how about you write that, but with this as your focal point instead?
For example. I have an author coming back who really wants to write heavy, smutty, male-chest-on-the-cover romance, because that's what she wrote before and she used to be excited about it. Now she isn't. But she knows there was money in it, so she's forcing her foot into a shoe that doesn't fit.
And when a Wildscribe forces herself into a genre that doesn't feel right, the only thing that happens is she makes it nearly impossible to move forward at all.
So I sat down with her and we looked at why she writes. What's the call? What's her siren song?
It had nothing to do with male chests. To be honest, it had nothing to do with sex.
Her focal point turned out to be healing from a specific kind of trauma. And even though it's specific, it's broad enough that she can write all kinds of stories. If she wants lustful ones, great — they just need that emotional focal point along the healing arc.
Because those are the stories she needs to hear. Those are the ones she needs to connect with. And honestly, those are the ones her reader needs to experience too.
Wildscribes are good at not making it worse, by the way. As they explore the experience, they find the right connections, and they don't move in directions that feel wrong or frightening. They keep themselves on a good path.
Sometimes an overly safe path — which is exactly why they disappear from writing for so long.
So when I'm rebuilding that trust, I usually just tell them to free write. See what comes out of you naturally. It's usually pretty good, even when it's weird and wacky and connected to nothing you can name.
They know. Everything they do connects to something.
Mythmakers
Mythmakers disappear into work. We work-procrastinate. And by "they," I mean we.
I work-procrastinate to no end. Any time someone makes me angry, or my emotions get too big to communicate — because I'm one of those people; when the feelings get large I shut down, the words get stuck right about here — I disappear into work.
That's what Mythmakers do. They never actually stop working. It looks and feels and sounds like they're still in it to win it. They're just focused on the wrong things.
I can't tell you how many things I've built that went absolutely nowhere. I'd start, think this is such a great idea, get a quarter of the way in, and think: this was a terrible idea.
Or I'd work on something through the free trial period to see whether it would catch on, because if it did I'd pay for it. But you usually need more time than the trial gives you. And the trial period is there to see whether you can work the tool, not whether you can make it catch.
The dangerous part for us is that we can validate every single rabbit hole we fall into. The work feels good. It doesn't feel wrong — it feels spot on. Like we're doing everything correctly and just need to stay focused, because this is going to be the next big thing.
So what I recommend for Mythmakers is a deadline set in concrete.
We're very good at going, okay, that's a deadline, cool — we're not going to make it, so we'll push it, and it'll be fine. Miss it by a day, that's cool. Three days, fine.
Which is strange, because that same person, if they actually feel the deadline, will do a week's work in a matter of hours. I have never seen anyone grind like a Mythmaker.
LoreKeepers
The LoreKeeper is the one who never really disappears, because the ritual is what powers them. Slow and steady, and eventually it catches on.
Unless it doesn't.
And then: why am I doing this? It isn't getting me anywhere. I'm running out of money and running out of support. This is a terrible idea. How do I stop? God, how do I stop?
Eventually they do stop. But they rarely pause and ask what part of it they didn't get right — because they followed the instructions they were given.
Instructions are always open to interpretation, especially in this field. If something got interpreted slightly wrong, or the path was a little off and you kept going after you'd left the road, that's very hard to spot with your blinders on and your head down.
I had a LoreKeeper who genuinely looked like she'd done everything right. She picked the right tropes. Her covers were right. Her narrative was good.
Something just didn't catch.
And it wasn't until I was building the trope module for the Stamina Author Engine that I understood.
I have been in indie publishing for twenty-four years. I thought I knew tropes. I thought I understood tropes — until last week, when I was putting that module together and finally, finally made the connection to why I'd been getting it wrong for so long.
That's when it landed for her too. She had named a couple of tropes, but she hadn't delivered the scenes.
So she broke the reader's trust.
And once you break reader trust, read-through drops. People don't buy the pre-orders. They don't come back and review. It's a real thing. It's a real thing.
I was able to reach back out to her, and she's looking at those tropes again and making sure the right scenes are landing in the right places, so she can rebuild some of that trust.
The thing to hold onto
We all have valid reasons for disappearing, and they're not all bad. Sometimes you have to take the step back. Sometimes you have to disappear.
Because we're not providing products. We're providing experiences.
And you can only share experiences by having them. You only have them by living them.
That's it for this week. I hope you had fun, and I'll see you again.
