Unanchored Writer

A writer who turns around one day to find that they've finished a book sometimes feels like a ship without an anchor.

Adrift. Time to play catch up and time to work up more story ideas. That's me, after turning in the last of a trilogy.

I am a regimented writer, getting up early every a.m. and working, familiar with my setting and characters of the current book. But the book is finished, and I'm catching up with what has waited, either professional or private. The small things of life actually take time, too, plus updating a website, answering e-mail (I love to do that), and rummaging around for a new story idea.

This rummaging around business takes energy, too. I usually keep a "toybox" of themes and ideas at the ready, but am taking a brief hiatus to finish stacks of paper, etc. that have waited, cleaning off my desk of the previous book's materials, etc. The afterbirth, so to speak.

Without my familiar characters to greet me in the morning now, I am multi-tasking, and that is something an author had better be prepared to do and frequently. I miss my characters and my story, now completed--until my editor gets back with her comments.

This is a routine that always happens: cleaning out the old, catching up, and preparing to get into another story.

But emotionally, I'm missing my fictional people and feeling unanchored.

Until the next book. :)