I finished the major edit of my new novel Friday night. (Honesty compels me to admit it was actually Saturday morning before I sent it off, midnight having come and gone.) I re-wrote a short story introducing the main characters over the weekend, for posting March 1st. Then last night I caught up on all the homework I hadn’t been getting done through the last frantic week of the edit.
Tonight I’m…not bored, exactly. I have plenty of things needing doing, and I’m working on them. I guess “restless” would be the word. There’s a reason that writers write, you see. It’s fun. It’s intense. It’s addictive.
It took me a while to figure that out. In November of 1994, I decided if I wanted to be a writer, it was time to put up or shut up. I would take the bits of story I was currently working on, and I’d write it. Or else I wasn’t a writer. My deadline was December 31, 1995. I remember I actually wrote “The End” at about four in the morning, December 30th. I was wowed. I was thrilled. I could not believe what I had done.
By morning I was sad. It was done. Over. My book was finished, what was I to do now?
Take a break, people told me. Have some fun. Do something for myself.
Didn’t they know writing a book was fun, and was for me? But I did take a break, and life swooped in, and it was over ten years before I wrote another book. That was so fun, I wrote three more in less than a year. And I don’t think I did a single thing else that year but work for a living and cook for my daughter. I’ve been trying to find a better balance since.
In this writer’s life, it’s a constant striving for…well, for maintenance. I’m a widowed mom and a full-time employee. I must do things besides write sometimes! But I have to cram those other things in and get them done as fast as possible, because a life without writing—well, that’s not a life I want to live.
So I’ll wallow a bit tonight, in between chores. I’ll poke at bitty things that need done, and try to list the bigger stuff, and I’ll ponder what I’ll write next. I’ve got some major life-stuff coming up in the next week or so, but I can think about what I’ll write just as soon as I have a bit of time. Ponder, plot, plan, research…these are the ways this writer gets by between “highs.”
It’s not like I can just do without. Those highs, man—those highs are like Everest.
Just can’t stop chasing the dragon, you know?