Being overwhelmed, dealing with overwhelm and losing my mind – literally

Plus, a deep dive into the self-publishing world of soft porn and erotica

Believe me kid, I know how you feel…(Photo by Keira Burton: https://www.pexels.com/)

“A philosopher is someone who recognizes that there is a lot he does not understand, and is troubled by it. In that sense, he is still wiser than all those who brag about their knowledge of things they know nothing about. ‘Wisest is she who knows she does not know,’ I said previously. Socrates himself said, ‘One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.’ Remember this statement, because it is an admission that is rare, even among philosophers.”
Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

As promised at the end of my last post, I will share my erotica reading experiences (it’s not as exciting as you think). If you missed that, you can go back and read it now to see what I’m talking about.

First, a word on overconfidence and the Dunning-Kruger effect

You may have heard of this particular type of cognitive bias…but before we go any further, let’s make sure we understand cognitive bias:

“the way a particular person understands events, facts, and other people, which is based on their own particular set of beliefs and experiences and may not be reasonable or accurate.” (Cambridge dictionary)

Got that?

Dunning-Kruger is just one of hundreds of cognitive biases, and it’s generally when people overestimate their abilities or skills in specific areas, even when they don’t have the necessary competence or capabilities. They often give so-called ‘expert’ opinions on things which they may not know anything about, and much of the time they are unaware of this blindspot. Conversely, more competent people might underestimate their own knowledge or skills.

This is why I distrust a lot of self-proclaimed ‘experts’. It’s a bit like giving yourself a nickname: you just don’t do it. Let other people declare you an expert. And if you do call yourself an expert, do it ironically if you must. This is what I do when I refer to myself as a coffee, whisky or football ‘expert’. I am fully aware that I am not an expert whatsoever in any of these fields.

All clear?

I thought I knew a lot about writing, editing, formatting and grammar, but…wow, is it overwhelming. Fascinating, yet mind-blowingly overwhelming. Perhaps I’m overdoing and overthinking it.

You might have already noticed a few uses of the prefix ‘over’. You can use verbs like overcook, overeat, overdo and overthink; adjectives like overanalytical, overdue, overqualified and oversized; and nouns like overdose, overreaction, overexcitement and overachiever.

Notice the differences here, with a lovely word like overwhelm:

Dealing with overwhelm in today’s world is tough with all the options and choices at our disposal.

I am feeling overwhelmed with all the things I had never thought about with publishing a book. It’s so overwhelming!

I’m trying my best not to overwhelm my readers with too much vocabulary and overly long grammar explanations.

And let’s not forget the adverb:

Hopefully my book reviews will be overwhelmingly positive.

What I’ve discovered during my deep dive into the world of reddit is that the overwhelming majority of self-published books are in erotica, sci-fi, fantasy and a fantastic category authors refer to as ‘niche romance’. Use your imagination here – I won’t get into any further detail (sorry) but believe me, there’s a whole world of this stuff out there. I’m not naïve, it’s just that I didn’t realise that the world of self-publishing was so massive and with such an overwhelming a whipping a whopping amount of erotica.

Other writers have been such a help, but the overwhelming¹ vast majority of writers offering advice and feedback in these forums are writers of erotica, sci-fi, fantasy or a combination of the three. Many of them also have blogs, which have been of tremendous help as well. The more I read, the more I realise I know so little. And there’s so much I had never even thought about. My brain is so overloaded with information that I barely know what’s what.

On one hand these writers have been wonderfully helpful; on the other, much of what they talk about doesn’t apply to my genre, whatever my genre is. One example: with marketing, they talk about the importance of TikTok teasers and using salacious images, reading excerpts in deep and seductive voices, and background images of scantily clad people.

(in other words: soft-core porn with half-naked people)

Ummm…something tells me that reading a sentence like this on TikTok will not capture the audience I am hoping for. A brief book excerpt from chapter 6, on pronunciation:

You will see many new words and you might ask yourself, “How do I pronounce this word?” This is when you can use the in-built dictionary on your device to help you, but take it from me, a native speaker: I see new words all the time that I’m not even sure how to pronounce because they are probably going to remain passive for a very long time. Then one day, I might need to say it and I might mispronounce it. It took me a while to realise that I had been mispronouncing cacophony for ages and no one corrected me. I was saying ‘CAC-o-phony’ instead of ‘ca-CO-phony.’

Don’t worry about mispronouncing the word and never criticise anyone who does so: it’s often the sign of an avid reader or a well-read person.

Life is a continuous learning process.

I could practise reading that in a seductive Barry White voice, but trust me: you wouldn’t want me to, even if the word ‘cacophony’ does have enormous potential.

(and this is not the Dunning-Kruger effect and me underestimating my, uh, ‘skills’ in this area).

Purely in the name of ‘research’ (which should be overly obvious), I have checked out a lot of the stuff in these ‘niche romance’ categories, getting free samples on my Kindle. Much of it is smut: ‘magazines, books, pictures, films or jokes that offend some people because they relate to sex.’ Some of it is well-written. But who I am to judge? Not being a fan of sci-fi or fantasy, I don’t really understand it.

But what I have noticed, and what terrifies me, is the number of spelling, grammar and formatting mistakes. And this is where I must be careful not to fall into the Dunning-Kruger trap, but I have read, re-read and re-read my book – and I’ve had editors reading and re-reading – and I think I’ve caught all the mistakes, but…what if I’m just as ‘bad’ as those other writers? Some of them on reddit have claimed that their books are ‘well-edited’ and yet…

The self-doubt starts to creep in.

Although, I’m prety confidant, but Im also absolutly teriffied that I had made a tons of miskates in me book.

Speaking of overwhelm, here are images of my browser tabs these days.

Firefox:

Chrome:

I’m losing my mind – literally

I ask friends and students this same question a lot: Do you also say [something] in your language?

So, let’s try it again: do other languages use this same word, ‘literally’, as much as English speakers? And if so, do people either overuse or misuse it? And if so, do people like to complain about how much it irritates them that people overuse or misuse it?

In English you definitely hear ‘literally’ used way too often, and very rarely is it used correctly and appropriately. All of the following are examples I have heard at various points in the past:

• I’m so hungry I could literally eat a horse.

• I was absolutely delighted – I was literally walking on clouds.

• I’ve walked 20 kilometres today and I think my feet are going to fall off – literally.

• I literally ate the entire pizza!

• I was literally up all night finishing my essay.

• It was the worst day of my life – literally.

I hope it’s clear why all of the above are wrong. The first three are misuses of it, unless I’m mistaken. I suppose that first speaker could perhaps eat an entire horse, anything is possible.

In the second set of examples, is there a difference if I said I ‘figuratively’ or ‘metaphorically’ ate an entire pizza? You did or you didn’t, that’s it. There’s nothing ‘literal’ about it. Being up literally all night is somewhat forgivable, but I still don’t like it.

So if I say that I am ‘literally losing my mind’, what would that mean?

Let me explain.

And this is all down to the terrible toll this book is taking on me (and I am exaggerating for dramatic effect, so please bear with me here).

I’ve been so absorbed and obsessed with my book and my sleep has been so up-and-down (as it always is, but that’s another story) that I can barely distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. I can hardly remember what I have and haven’t done. And I know everyone faces moments like this, but these days, it’s in the extreme and every day is a battle to differentiate between dreams and reality.

Let’s take dreams, for example. And I am fully aware that talking about one’s dreams is a major no-no and is deadly boring for others. Any time a person says, ‘I had a weird dream last night’ and then proceeds to start talking about it, it’s a sign to turn and run – literally. No one wants to hear about your dreams. Many authors despite those who talk about their character’s dreams in books (I don’t do this at all in my book, thankfully). When my sister and I are discussing our dreams, one of us will say “Uh oh, what would Cicero think?” That’s because I once read, somewhere, about Cicero’s ‘Rules of Conversation’, one of which I thought included ‘don’t talk about your dreams in public’ but may have actually been more of ‘don’t bore people or talk about things that don’t interest them.’ I’ve just done a bit of research to see if I can find out exactly what he said, but alas, I can’t seem to find it. Take my word for it, he said something about this, and even if he didn’t, he was a very wise man and he probably said something similar(ish).

So here we go, I’m going to go against Cicero’s advice, but I shall keep this mercifully short: Over the past few months, when I do sleep, I’ve been dreaming more than usual, almost every night, and the worrying thing is that my dreams are so banal and mundane – like this post, badoom-cha! – that I can’t distinguish them from real life. I think I’ve done, said, written or bought something but then…I’m not sure and much of the time I haven’t done it. But it so vividly feels like I have. There are things that I swear I’ve done or written, but evidently…I haven’t. And vice versa: no way, I definitely did that! But actually…no, I didn’t.

And this is a first for me, and I suppose this is a symptom of old age and being so wrapped up in this book for so long: even when I simply close my eyes in a sleepy state without actually falling asleep, I have no control over my thoughts. It’s like I’m in a deep, banal dream without even being anywhere close to sleeping, and sometimes mere minutes pass and it feels like I just had a three-hour dream.

Do you see what I mean when I say that I am literally losing my mind?

This is – literally – a very good and rare correct use of literally. And that’s not the Dunning-Kruger effect telling me this. I’m an expert in this, trust me.

Lastly, one final example of me losing my mind. We’ve recently moved into a new flat, which meant moving our crap and buying a few things and re-arranging stuff, etc. One day, while trying to find a place to put our vacuum, I got confused and a bit lost. I walked around with the damn thing trying to find a place to put it and couldn’t find a better spot from where I’d picked it up. But I was so overwhelmed with everything and my mind was literally slipping away from me, that I didn’t know how to take it back or where I’d really taken it from, and so I just stood and tried to hit the ‘undo’ button.

Holy mackerel – I tried to ‘undo’ moving the vacuum!

I’m so used to book editing that it took me a minute to realise that there is no ‘undo’ key in real life.

Which is a real shame – imagine if we could just ‘undo’ everyday stuff?

Or maybe that’s a terrible idea.

Next week: important book updates and, hopefully, I will have some news on the cover. Stay tuned.

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Bonus challenge: there is a sentence above with a few mistakes in it. Can you identify all of the mistakes? Some of them should be blindlingly obvious, but there are a couple that are particularly troublesome for some learners, and I see them creep into some students’ writing. I count 11 in total (or only 10, if you’re from certain parts of the UK or Ireland).

1. Let’s not overdo it!