Setting Boundaries as a Ward Against Anxiety

At the long-ago recommendation of Erik Wecks, a local-to-me author and friend, I started reading Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. (I’ve been picking up books like this lately because I want to dig deeper in my work – both my fiction and my non-fiction. The authors that I admire the most are the ones who bare their souls on the page – something that’s hard to do if you’re someone like me who hates digging in to her own feelings.) In it, Brown talks about learning to…

Dealing with overwhelm

I've been thinking a lot about how to deal with overwhelm. Some days, I can feel myself skirting up against the cliff that is total burnout, only to shift myself back on course at the last minute with a weekend off with friends, or taking a long bike ride in the middle of the afternoon. As my freelance business picks up, I've also come up against some pretty pressing deadlines in my fiction biz – which means that my usual strategy of dropping the fiction to accommodate client projects won't work. A very regimented productivity and scheduling system allows me to make…