Between Books

It feels great to finish writing a book.

Then it doesn't.

It's a strange letting go of a family that's taken residence in one's mind for months and welcoming a new one in.

Being in the midst of writing a novel is like being gainfully employed -- knowing what you're going to do each day.  Having purpose.

Finishing the novel is like being unemployed.  Laid off.  Thank you very much for your services.  There's the door.

I remember hearing Jodi Picoult say as soon as she finishes a book, she begins a new one.  That same day. 

I wish I could do that.  I can't.

After I've given all my energy to a book, I'm emotionally spent.  Empty.

The time between books is for refilling, for noticing stories and great character names and connections between things I care about.  It's time to let ideas light up my mind.  To take furious notes.  To read piles of books, hoping to be sparked by inspiration.

The time between books is for reconnecting with friends, taking long walks, spending time focusing on my family's needs, doing mundane jobs I've long neglected at home. 

But the time between books is sometimes uncomfortable. 

I want to be productive.  I want to write every day, but I'm not yet ready.  I have to fill the well, gather momentum and the willingness to lose myself in another family's story -- a family that will feel so real, I'll worry for them, lose sleep over them and root for them even though I know the odds are against them.

I'm more like Linda Sue Park, who finds herself trolling the want ads for teaching jobs when she's between books.

Writing days are hard sometimes.  Frustrating other times.  And sometimes they are smooth sailing with fat page counts.  Sometimes filled with exciting discoveries and heartbreaking happenings.  Sometimes they are slogging through the muck of a sluggish mind.  Other days, the fingers can't fly fast enough to keep up with the story. 

Writing days -- good, bad or ugly -- are where I belong, where I'm always headed.

The days spent writing are the ones I feel most at home with myself and with the world.

Postscript:  I wrote this post last night.  This afternoon, my agent called with brilliant revision suggestions for Death by Toilet Paper.  So, it looks like I'm happily employed again.  For now.  

Beginnings . . .

When I finish writing a novel, I don't rush into a new one. I can't.

I read once that best-selling novelist, Jodi Picoult, begins a new novel the minute she finishes writing her old one. Immediately. If I did that, the new novel would sound a whole lot like the old one.

I spend about a month (sometimes longer) emptying, letting the characters and their story go. I also get neurotic, convinced I'm doing nothing of importance with my life and must get a new career. Immediately. I drift. I get irritated with myself for "wasting" time and not writing. I'm cranky sometimes and joyous others. Mostly cranky. (It's no fun living with a writer.)

And then something happens. I start to notice things and think, now THAT would make a great character name. What a funny tidbit. I've got to include THAT in my next book.

Newbery Medal winner, Linda Sue Park, calls this period, where she's sure she must get a job teaching (not writing), RESETTING from one book to the next. I love that term because it's apt. I call this process FILLING THE WELL.

And once it begins, it's a lot of fun -- preparing the mind to begin an entirely new project, full of hope and potential.

If YOU'RE filling YOUR well, here are a few gems from the book: THE SECRET MIRACLE: THE NOVELIST'S HANDBOOK, edited by Daniel Alarcon, which incidentally, came out the same day my new novel did -- April 13, 2010.

"The best first chapters . . . should contain the DNA of the entire book in miniature." Jonathan Lethem

"You shouldn't write a check with your first chapter that your novel can't cash." Adam Mansbach

On the difference between writing a novel and a short story: "Novels are longer and have more shit in them." Stephen King

"I try to get a thousand new words every writing day, five days a week. Fifty-two weeks a year. Try." Michael Chabon

On moving forward when you are blocked:

"Go for more walks. Don't take a book. Throw my mind on its own resources." Stephen King

"I just write anyway, even knowing it's lousy. Ten pages of bad writing are more useful to me than giving up for the afternoon -- let alone the week, or the year." Daniel Handler

If you are beginning, I leave you with this simple, but brilliant quote by Lewis Carroll: "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop."