The past year has been a wild ride for me and the growth of Rooted in Writing—as an editor, as a writer, as a wife, and as a member of my community. In 2017, I took my freelancing gig to the big leagues and registered my LLC. I was joined by the wonderful Christi Martin who specializes in copyediting to form the Rooted in Writing team, and I stepped up in the Editorial Freelancers Association as the new co-coordinator of the North Texas chapter. My husband and I bought our first house, got a puppy, and met our new godchild, Drax.

On top of all that, I got to work with some truly wonderful authors and creatives this past year. Through our clients, I went on adventures in Japan, sought vengeance in California, fought invasion in space, and found love in Kansas. The books we worked on took us all over the universe, to the heights and depths of humanity, and I couldn’t be more honored to be part of these authors’ journeys. I gathered up the numbers to share with Christi—she loves data—and I thought I’d share our year in review here as well.

In 2017, we . . .

• Worked with 18 authors
• Saw 17 of our titles hit the market
• Edited 1,020,590 words
• Wrote 180,717 words as a ghost writer for our clients
• Attended 3 conferences

After all I was able to do and accomplish in 2017, one area of my life fell short.

My writing.

I’ve always had a work in progress on my desk, but something about 2017 kept me from feeding the artist within. I think I spent so much time wrapped up in others’ creations—and I loved every minute of it—that I didn’t leave enough imagination for my own stories. So there my Scrivener file sat, collecting pixel dust on my dock.

Protecting your creativity is an important part of any artist’s life. Part of what makes us storytellers is our desire to give to others, to share part of ourselves with those around us. The risk we run is losing ourselves in the process.

Acting as a ghostwriter, I wrote enough words this year to fill a couple of healthy-length novels, but the thirst for creation wasn’t sated within me. That’s because I knew I had stories of my own to tell, but every time I sat down to start writing, I would feel exhausted. All of my best metaphors went to the other novels; I’d spent so much time writing an epic battle that I didn’t have the emotional energy left in me to write that tender reunion scene.

It’s not just editors that experience this. If you have a job that requires creative thinking, you also risk burnout in your own art. So, after some reflection and strong “resolutions,” I’ve come up with three concrete steps to protecting my creativity.

We’ve all heard this while riding in an airplane. “In case of an emergency, put your oxygen mask on first before helping others.” The logic seems selfish, but it’s necessary for survival. If you’re not functioning, no one else can benefit from your help. If I’m not actively engaged in my own writing and breathing life into my stories, I’ll lose the skill necessary to do the same for others.

So do your art first. Get up earlier in the morning, pull out your laptop, and get those first few pages down. Julia Cameron famously speaks of doing “morning pages” in her book, The Artist’s Way. The idea is you spend your freshest moments of the day in your own creation, engaging in your own voice before donning someone else’s vision.

People, this has been a hard lesson for me. I’ve always been a night owl. I do my best work in the moments before midnight. But after a full day of writing and editing, I’ve got no midnight oil to burn. I’m out. I hate mornings. I hate the weird time between sleep and lunch where birds squawk and people are jogging. But, if I want my hero to find his princess and slay the dragon, I’ve got to get up early. (Somewhere, my husband is laughing at this doomed proposition.)

As an undergrad, I had a visiting author tell me something that has ever since haunted and inspired me. No one cares if you succeed. At first I was hurt, but it’s true. The people in your life who love and support your writing don’t actually care if you write, they just care if you’re happy. They will support you whether you become a New York Times bestselling author or never finish that first chapter. Because they love you.

The only person who actually cares about your writing is you.

You are the only person who will fight for your creativity to the level it deserves. So fight for it. Carve out a space and a time that you can regularly go to pursue your art, and let your family know. They’ll still not respect the space. They’ll knock on the door “just for a quick second,” and soon you’ve lost your rhythm. Be strong, and defend your creativity. If you set an appointment on your calendar for writing twice a week, make that meeting with your muse. You will only create so much as you allow yourself.

You won’t always succeed in utilizing your creativity to its fullest or finding the time to put words to the page. Life happens. I don’t know about you, but I tend to get discouraged when I miss my creative appointments too many times in a row. First I start to put writing lower on the priority list, then I’m making excuses for why Netflix is a better research tool for my novel than a quick Google search. I’ve spoken before about how using a writing group can help boost your creativity, but when I started to get burned out from my own art, I hid from my accountability partners.

It’s embarrassing to admit you struggle being creative. It is. Especially when your job depends on your creativity. But the first step to regaining control over your art and protecting your creativity is to tell someone how you feel. Tell them about that embarrassing Netflix binge and all the pixel dust on your manuscript file. Tell them you don’t think your art is worth defending when so many other people need you for their art. They won’t fight for your art the same way you will, but they’ll remind you to keep fighting.

Talk to them about your struggles and see if you can both discover what your creative limits are. If you’re only good at being creative at night, figure out how to make that work for your art. If you get burned out on writing after four hours but you work a nine-to-five, see if you can take on other responsibilities at work that add more routine tasks and diverse projects to your schedule. Maybe you can break up your creative energy-draining blocks throughout the week so you have time to recover between writing times.