Hangover Cure

My usual writing practice involves near-constant activity. The day after I release a book, I'm already a few thousand words into the next one, with plans for others waiting off to the side. Pushed by that sense that I'll never have time to write all the things I want to write. And not wanting to make readers wait longer than they have to.

But this time, with this book, I'm nursing a serious writing hangover. Part mental exhaustion, part physical exhaustion, part burnout. It's a lot of things. But after I released this one, the tank was on E, and I've got to take a second to decompress. My hangover cure is always: read a lot of killer books, listen to lots of music, go driving, watch movies, spend extra hours at the barn, set aside all thoughts of work and wait until the spark comes back.

It's actually good timing, because it gives me a chance to do all the in-depth research I need for my NaNoWriMo project. Back in the early spring I started working on something new, but didn't have time to really take it anywhere what with TLC and Loverboy in the works. I've got a little over 20k words done and a ton of notes on my tablet, lines, plot points, and alternate ideas stored up and waiting. In the last week, I've realized what started as a stray idea has worked itself into this expansive, century-spanning beast of a book. And I'm a little bit in love with it. And it's so different, and so sweet, and I'm just going, "Please write worth a damn and don't screw this up." A big cast, and big topics, and just...ugh. Why would I jump from one challenge to another? Glutton for punishment. But that's where my heart is right now, so I have to see it through, and just hope what I put on the page measures up to the mental image kicking around in my head. That's the most frustrating part of writing, you know: never measuring up to your own standards.

So that's what I'll be doing the rest of this year: going deep into lit fic territory and working on bettering my writing. To answer all the questions about Dartmoor: no, the series isn't over. There's more to come. I just need to feed my creative side for a little while. I'll still post related snippets for #FicPromptFridays and there are a few left-out moments from Loverboy I might eventually write. So no worries. And I think a lot of my readers will really enjoy what's coming up next :)

Happy Friday, all.