What Failing Physics Taught Me About Burnout and Balance as a Full-Time Writer
By Crystal Smith Paul
The inanimate has to listen (we pray) but we humans have to choose.
We’re not good at everything. And we don’t need to be. We’re not computers or AI, even though we’re both hardwired to learn through our mistakes.
The harder the hit, the bigger the lesson. Those lessons become our hard passes.
One of my hardest passes is overbooking my schedule.
Learning to Leave Room for the Creative Process
I’m now a full-time “creative” — specifically, a novelist and novelette writer (it does ring, right?) — and part of that is leaving room for the breadth of the process. It’s taken me the past 20 months to get in a place where I can see, schedule-wise, what that looks like.
The last time my schedule needed such regulation was high school, when our days were primed and sliced into seven slots.
Junior year had a heavy load. And I almost failed Physics. A first for me.
But I didn’t care. Not about Physics. Not that semester.
I got the basics. I did well in Algebra II/Trig and geometry the year before.
I was taking Japanese and Spanish still (since fourth/fifth grade, it’s getting fuzzy at this point) and Chemistry (which I loved and maybe should have pursued more).
When Burnout Shows Up Before You Have a Name for It
It was my first experience of burnout. I was tapped out on symbols and synonyms.
My detachment from caring about failure was a surprise even to me. I had always loved learning.
Education was a family value. My grandmother and aunts were teachers and traveled with thick paper workbooks for reading, writing, and arithmetic with bright candy-colored cover illustrations peaking out of the tote bags they lugged around like small suitcases that matched their shoes.
I had always done well, and wanted to do well in school. Good thing, because “better had done well” in school or else I’d be on punishment… at least, until I took Physics.
I didn’t care how many weeks I’d be off the phone. I’d see folks in school. I didn’t have much privacy anyway. Borrowed from my mom’s downstairs office, the cord stretched up the stairs to my room and shared the line with the fax machine.
I couldn’t go out on the weekends? That wouldn’t last forever.
Choosing to Let Go: Why I Let Myself Fail
I decided it was OK if I didn’t pass this thing. I had never gotten a C before, and in true Virgo sun fashion, I went for the gusto and got lower than that.
I shed the weight that was Physics and it pulled my GPA down like an anchor sinking into the sand in the depths of the ocean.
Or so I thought. I slid out of Physics with a D but my consistent hard work evened out my GPA in the end.
What Balance Actually Looks Like (Hint: Not Every Day Is Equal)
I learned that not every day is going to look the same. As long as you don’t give up entirely, it’s healthy to let yourself fluctuate and operate like a human. We are not machines.
This experience showed me what balance looks like in terms of effort. All the slices can’t be equal every time. And you gotta be willing to deal with the consequences of what has to be cut.
So, I took that fail on the chin, knowing that I wasn’t going into a career that needed to know anything beyond Newton’s Law of Gravity.
Want more behind-the-scenes on the writing life? Subscribe to The Annex for free to receive my musings on writing, inspiration, and how it all gets done. And if you haven’t read Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? yet, grab your copy — it’s where the Blair House universe begins.
Crystal Smith Paul is the author of Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? She writes historical fiction that lives in the gray areas—the spaces between black and white where rules are made and secrets are kept.
Her next book is coming in 2027! In the meantime – you can learn more about the Blair House characters in Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? By subscribing to Blair House on Substack.
Crystal also publishes personal essays about the writing process and creativity on The Annex.
