I finished a book yesterday. As a pantser, I couldn’t tell you how I finished it. A week ago, I had no idea what the end was going to be. That’s a popular question in author interviews, too, and I’m always stumped when it comes to explaining any kind of “story behind the story” piece. There is no story behind the story. I sat down and typed, and it literally formed page by page with little forethought and no plan. By the time I finish a book, I’m pretty wiped out.
This is the first time ever where I don’t get to kick back a bit before starting another project. There’s no decompression time or taking stock time. I have a turn-in date for another project on July 1st, and then another turn-in on August 1st. I have a RTB column due tomorrow and an article due the day after that.
I’m sitting here, trying to figure out which one to tackle first, and my brain is saying, “You just wrote an entire book. Take some time off.”
This jumble of brain matter is something I tried to avoid and somehow it didn’t happen. And I keep telling myself that I’m going to slow down, but I don’t really. I’m always actively planning what I’m going to do next. Mind you, I’m not at all complaining. Just thinking out loud. There’s definitely drawbacks to being too ambitious. One of them is mental exhaustion.
