Sunday 6 July 2014

The lull after the book.


It’s been almost two months since The Road to Redemption was published.  The confetti has finally quit floating in the air.  The streamers are hanging limply from the ceiling and the balloons have lost their helium.  Fan mail is slowing to the usual trickle and I no longer check the book ratings and download numbers each day.

Life has returned to normal.

Normal? 

An author leads a ‘normal’ life?

Yep.  We're just normal folk with a slightly unusual job.  A job from which I'm trying to take a short vacation.

Now that the hubbub of my latest book is over, I’m concentrating on real life.  Fun things like cleaning – I can’t believe how much hair my cats have shed—and filing away papers that I barely glanced at and set aside to deal with later.  Things like getting the oil changed in my car, tackling the mess in the basement and making a doctor’s appointment for my arm.  Things like trying to get my ITIN and figuring out how to declare myself the sole proprietor of a small business for when income tax time rolls around next year. 

I’m starting some home renovations and I'm helping my elderly parents.  I’m also reconnecting with friends I neglected and indulging in some of my other hobbies such as gardening and cooking.  Just today I made a summer berry pie using raspberries grown in my backyard.  Yum!

Reading a book I haven’t written is still on my list of things to do, as is sitting by the water, watching the boats go by and doing absolutely nothing.  Ah, wouldn’t that be the life?  Long days of leisure, sitting with my feet up and dozing without a thought in my head…. 

Sigh. 

That’s what I always hope for and it never happens.  Writing doesn't seem to want to give me that vacation.  Re-edits of The Mating and Bonded are waiting for me in my in-box so I can get them out as paperbacks. The characters in my head are continually nudging me wondering when I will allow them to see the light of day.   My website needs updating, this blog has been neglected.  The story files on my computer should be sorted and backed up.  A group of authors wants me to contribute a story to a boxed set.  Friends and fans keep asking which book I’m going to write next. They’re eager for another story to read and I’m grateful for their enthusiasm for the series but...it’s too soon.

I’ve written about a thousand words of two possible books and still haven’t decide which one I will focus on.  They both appeal to me but, quite frankly, my muse is still tired.  Working all day and ‘authoring’ at night really wears me down.  The old adage of ‘burning the candle at both ends’ holds more than a grain of truth when you are fifty.  

I still need to recharge my batteries. 

I need to rest my arm - I've developed tendonitis from too much time at the computer. 

I need to not be an author for a while longer.

And then, I promise, I’ll write you another tale.

2 comments:

  1. I hope by now you've gotten to do most of what's on that list. You deserve a good long vacation. ..even if it's just lounging and reading a book by somebody else watching boats of somebody else trips. Enjoy Nicky.

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  2. Yea I finally made it to your blog. Looks great! Take care of yourself & spoil your cats :) Juli

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