What’s Next?

I’m wrapping up minor proofreading edits on HitList, aka The Beast. On August 1st I’m putting the first draft into the hands of an editor for a comprehensive critique and I’m looking forward to even more professional feedback in early September.

I’m fortunate to have some kind-but-unwittingly-hapless beta-readers volunteering to read the thing. If you’re one of them, I Love You and I’m so grateful. Ahem…and I will uh…hand it over [speaks into hand] soon. Just as soon as I–um–changemynameandmovetoPalau. Because seriously, any misconception you might enjoy about me being a nice, sweet,  marginally normal person? Finito. I’ve learned to accept that. But have you?

So on to a different subject. Have you ever been kidnapped, held hostage for months in a gritty, cheap motel, then beaten and left for dead on the side of the freeway?

Neither have I. But I imagine I might feel this very same way after coming home: blinking, stunned and a little like someone used my soul to wipe out the refrigerator in a flophouse. Lately, I can barely stumble out of bed in the morning.

I wrote two books in one year while working full-time and doing the mom-thing. Maybe it’s only that it’s caught up with me.

I physically write during a small window of time each day–4:30 am to 6:30 am–but for the past year writing has occupied a huge portion of my time mentally and emotionally. The book was like a tattoo across my frontal lobe, ever-present, presenting a constant demand for attention just like that guy I dated in college.

The woman who teaches my writing group says as soon as you finish one project you must begin another. But I’m finding little motivation. Heck, lately the act of sitting upright in front of the laptop is a feat of will.

I could resurrect the cowboy and while that does possess a certain soothing, restorative appeal, sleeping in sounds much nicer.

If I don’t write, will it just go away? On the other hand, if I force myself to write without feeling the same all-consuming drive, what’s the point?

Writers, what do you do? Are you drained after finishing a big project? Do you jump right back in? If you ‘take a break’ from writing, is it hard to return? Does it come back?