In between

I'm in between right now. I've finished a book, revised it, gotten critiques, revised again, and now it's out for another round with fresh eyes to make sure that I addressed all the issues readers brought up. Which means I'm In Between Books. It's a hard place to be. My mind is still a little with this one because of whatever revisions I might still need to do once I get the crits back, plus I've got to come up with a submission plan. But I can't help feeling like I need to be working on something new, so I can have an answer if someone likes this book and wants to know what else I have going on.* It takes time to get the old book out of the head and compost a new story, though. I have a lot of fragments of various stories, but for a book to really take off, it's got to feel new to me and have surprises in it that I can discover during the writing. And it needs a voice as well. I know it will come...but it's always a strange time, being between books. Like hitting the wrong square in chutes and ladders and getting sent back to the beginning when you were oh, so close.

What I should probably do is house repairs or fixing the piano or something like that--creative, but not in writing. Or read. But I'm waiting on an order of both books and piano pedals. The snow's not quite off the road enough to make it easy to push a stroller through slush (the sidewalks still have several feet of snow/ice piled on them), so taking walks to clear my head aren't really an option quite yet. Which means I'm left feeling restless.

What do you do between books? How do you clear your head/fill the well/prepare for new characters speaking to you?


*I realize I am probably putting way too much pressure on myself at this point...