NaNoWriMo Hangover

After writing a novel in 30 days, what’s next?

It’s December sixth, a week since I completed my first NaNoWriMo, and my writing muscles are thoroughly exhausted. My son was once a swimmer, and I feel like I’m going through what they called ‘taper week.’ It’s the time when you’ve been working so hard to accomplish those goals and hone your skills that you don’t really know what to do with yourself after the fact. It’s an emotional roller-coaster where you feel elated and excited, then the next moment you’re crashing or lost. It’s the time when you feel like you should be doing something, but don’t really know what. It’s a period where you have nervous energy that you need to blow off, but you can’t really figure out how. Then, as a planner and plotter in my writing, it is a first for me. 

I’m toying with the name An Orchid Falls for the 64k-word novel I drafted in November, but we will see how it goes over with my writer’s group. We will see if the story is something that would be good to push out to the masses. It may or may not hold together, and I am certain that there are a number of holes that need to be filled. Likewise, it is my very first attempt at writing something contemporary…I’m classifying it as Literary Romance. As a fantasy writer by nature, I hope that my attempt at normal is interesting enough to bring in a new reader. Stay tuned, I’ll let you know.

Next week, my writer’s group will begin to read the draft. When I get that first feedback, nervously open each email, and compile all the comments, I’ll also pull out the manuscript and read it cover to cover. Hopefully, with a two week break, I’ll be able to look at it objectively and see if I’ve produced something my readers might enjoy.

In the meantime, I am circling back to completing the draft of the fourth Caeteran Tale. Currently, I think the series will top out at six books. The fourth (tentatively named, Pawns in Play) is the last part of the overall epic journey that I had written in first person. Once I complete this and the first couple of chapters in Book 5, I will be circling back to my original outline and completing Elle’s story–a grand thing!

Love to all!

Susan