Thursday, April 14, 2016

The Long and Winding Editing Road—Emptiness



I've finished the third draft of my novel. I've sent it off to a few readers. Now, I sit at my computer aimlessly clicking from my email to Twitter and back to my email again.


I expected to be a little dazed after I finished this draft, but I didn't expect to feel so empty.


How do I return to normal life after working so hard on one project for several months?


When I finished the second draft last November, the same thing happened, only I didn't have the advantage of hindsight to recognize it then. Now, at least, I can make an effort to fill the emptiness with useful activities, unlike in November and December, when I filled the emptiness by wasting time.


In my last post I outlined a few things that I wanted to do to fill my time, but none of them hold much appeal to me (except applying for college, though that's more of a necessity than an appeal). All I can think about is writing. So, though I had planned to save outlining stories for a summer project, I will probably start outlining now to save myself from wasting time. Idleness is the mother of all vices, as they say.



When you writers finish a new draft, do you feel emptiness or relief? Do you jump straightaway into the next project? If not, what do you fill your time with?

2 comments:

  1. That emptiness is quite familiar to me. There's this sense of... "hmm, I could actually sit around twiddling my thumbs for a few minutes..." (I sometimes get the same feeling when I finish reading a really good book and am a bit a-flounder as to what to read next...)

    I usually take a couple of weeks off between projects, just so I don't get too burned out, but I'm almost always writing something, regardless of whether or not I'm supposed to be taking a break. Blog posts, to-do lists, letters, emails, grocery lists... writing is compulsory for me.

    Congrats on finishing the third draft!

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    Replies
    1. Writing other things like blog posts and grocery lists while on break is a great idea. I've been trying to sort out some characters for a different story, but I haven't gotten very far yet.

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