The Four-Year Minute

Burnout, breakdowns, and coming back to the Wordslinger Podcast.

This was the fifth time I’d sat in front of this microphone and just started. This was the first time, though, that it was a restart.

It had been four years since I’d done this. Four years since I’d gone on “a short hiatus,” with the intention of just taking a break, of burning off some of the burnout. “I’ll be back,” thought. “I’ll come back to this. I just need a minute.”

The four-year minute is a rare one. You don’t often encounter that one in nature. It sort of emerges on its own, unexpected. Nobody sees it coming, it simply appears and takes over.

Four years ago was 2020. And yeah, some obvious stuff happened that year. The pandemic derailed things for all of us. Whether that had to go down the way it did, we can probably debate. But facts are facts, and history is history. And at that moment in my own personal history, I hit a wall. I flamed out, overwhelmed by everything. I was done, with all of it.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about how this ended up happening, but here’s the short and quick gist: 2020.

That maybe needs a tiny bit of expansion. But let’s just say that while most people found themselves with more free time, working from home for the first time in their lives, taking on Home Depot projects and learning to bake bread, Kara and I had just embarked on full time van life at a time when campgrounds and restaurants and most public places weren’t open. We had just handed over the keys to our bricks-and-sticks home, and now we had to figure things out in a new world with rules no one could agree on. With pressures no one could relate to.

The publishing company I worked for decided to do a daily livestream, and since I was “the guy,” it was up to me to build the show and make it work, while not only maintaining my traditional workload but also taking on new duties and responsibilities. And I did it. And I’m proud of what I built. That show is still around today, even though I had to step down and leave. It’s still having a positive impact on the lives of writers.

Far from finding myself with more free time, my workload actually quadrupled. And because “somethings gotta give,” I decided to put Wordslinger on hiatus. I also ended up slowing down on writing and publishing—the one thing I’ve always demanded would be my priority.

I abandoned all my personal priorities in the name of doing what I thought would help my community the most. And I wasn’t wrong, it did help. I spent all my self on it, and I’m grateful that it did some good.

I did write, though. Maybe not as much or as often, but I was still writing and publishing. But the show?

It was only supposed to be for a few weeks. But I became so spread out and burnt out, I eventually thought of the whole thing as being done and over. Wordslinger, no more!

Over the past four years, I’ve thought about doing something new. I even did a show, for a time, called “Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk About Something Else,” inspired by my friends Tawdra Kandle and Mel Jolly. That was fun. But something was missing.

I’ve built shows and recorded first episodes for at least four different shows over the past six months. And finally, a couple of weeks ago, that nagging feeling finally broke through to let me know what was wrong.

I was just rebuilding Wordslinger over and over. And Wordslinger was already a thing.

So, for the fifth time, I swung my microphone closer. I turned on the studio lights over my desk. I opened the recording app and looked myself in the eye. And I spoke.

And the Wordslinger was reborn.

And once I had the show recorded and I edited the whole thing together with that slide guitar intro, that opening narrator, that musician giving a raspy Wordslinger! as the theme song faded, I felt something I haven’t felt in a very long time. Much longer than the four-year minute that the show was on hiatus.

I felt like I’d come home.

I felt like me again.

I hadn’t even been aware of it, all this time. But I had really missed this

.

And so, Wordslinger Podcast is back. But more importantly, so is that spark and inspiration that always came to me because of the show. Finally, after years, I was into this again. I was passionate about it again. I was me again.

I’m doing some new things with the show. I’m changing the tone a bit. I still love and serve my writing community, but they were never meant to be the exclusive audience for that show. It was always meant to be helpful, but it was also meant to be an inspiration. It was always meant to be something that resonated with the sort of people I serve as an audience. Readers, listeners, viewers. You, I’m thinking. It’s meant for you.

That’s why I hope you’ll try it out. Give it a listen. I’m currently hosting it right here on Substack: https://kevintumlinson.substack.com/s/the-wordslinger-podcast

I’m also hosting it on YouTube, and I’m hoping you’ll go subscribe there as well: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvSjreJNEhuQX5DnVehfdIoC0SfC4wEKu

Go like, subscribe, share. All the important things YouTubers ask you to do. Leave a comment, too. YouTube seems to really like when people do that.

So is this show something you’ll like? That remains to be seen, but of course I hope it is. I think that over time it’s going to shift and shape itself to fit you better, because it’s going to shift to fit me better. And I’ll let you in on a bit of a secret: One reason I want the show to exist and do well is so it can help me grow my audience. This not only allows me to reach more readers for my books, it also gives me “social proof” for attracting agents and publishers.

It’s the same reason I keep encouraging people to subscribe here on Substack. These things became important, along the way. The existence of a “platform.” It matters. It’s part of the landscape of being a writer and creator now. Unavoidable. But that doesn’t make it undesirable.

Because I’m also looking for you. I’m looking for the audience for my work, the people who get it. The people who benefit from it, love it, support it, share it. I’m looking for you.

Thank you. And I’ll be seeing you.

A NOTE AT THE END

There was a minute there—nearly the full four-year minute—where burnout had me. I was spent. I was broken. I was done.

Kara was the one who pulled me back.

We’ve made some risky decisions since then, and we’ve had some unexpected challenges. There are new turns in our road that we didn’t see coming. But the thing we can both count on is each other.

My goal in life, my actual and genuine goal for the days I have on this Earth, is to rise to a level where I can help people who are suffering like I was suffering. I want to be someone that people can rely on to be here, offering whatever wisdom or inspiration or help that I can manage.

The Wordslinger Podcast is part of that, but so are my novels, so are all the other things I do and build.

So what I want you to know is two fold: One, you are not alone. I’m here to help in all the ways I can. And two, with your support I can do more for others, too. And for that, for you, I am more grateful than I’ll ever be able to express. Even despite all the words I write and say every single day.