Adrift

My delicious manuscript is with the copyeditor for the next two weeks, and it feels like a part of me is gone.

What, oh what, shall I do with my time?

Writing books is like that. Authors get all caught up in our story world, devoting as many hours as possible each day at the keyboard, many, many, more hours each day thinking about our story. We work and rework, fix plot holes, read aloud, throw coffee containers across the room.

And finally ...

The manuscript goes to the editor, and we're left with a massive hole in our lives.

Now that I've unpacked from Chicago, Swiffered the floors a few times, done the laundry, shopped at both the local market and Whole Foods (in one day) I'm ready to sit down with pen and notebook to come up with what I plan to write next.

I'm eager to explore the darker side of my writing life, and I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous about it only because I've spent so much time with the hunky surfers who never poison anybody.

I think part of being a creative person, though, is letting our minds come up with what excites us.

Even if a few fictional characters end up on a coroner's table. Or a shallow grave.