It's Sunday afternoon; Maddie's napping, my wife's at the grocery store, I've finished my final draft for An Unexpected Visit (which will be out in October), I've decided on the design for Visit's cover (can NOT wait to share that with you all), and I'm all caught up on my e-mails. I can actually do a "fun" blog for once.
This is unprecedented.
I know I've mentioned before that once Visit was finished I would be taking some time off from writing. I only reiterate that now because I wanted to share how it felt when I had hit SEND and that e-mail with the attached manuscript went off to my publisher. Honestly, I sat back in my black leather desk chair and just...felt...free. I could breathe.
As an aside, I want to mention that no one at my wonderful publisher, Winter Goose Publishing, has ever imposed deadlines on me, or pressured me to have anything in at any time - they are, simply, the best to work with. It is I, and I alone, that has put all the strain on myself, and I do enough that no one else anywhere ever has to do it for me. Ask my wife.
In regards to my writing "sabbatical:" I've taken a month or two off between drafts before, but, as it pertains to my future plans, this break will be much different. Time is so precious anymore that, having worked myself from one project to the next over the last six years (in which I've written nine novels, published two, and put together one novella with a helping of short stories that'll be released later this year), it's time to do a serious - and lengthy - recharging of the batteries. It's time to sit back and enjoy what I've accomplished - three books in three years is nothing to scoff at. Or so I'm told.
This break doesn't mean I won't write - I've already got the first draft of an urban fantasy-style, modern western, post apocalyptic short novel called The Long Road Home penned, which may be the first in a series; I'm plotting a zombie thriller - 815 Cherrydale Road - that's been long overdue (considering my love for zombies); I'm also outlining another YA novel, this one from a female perspective, titled Among the Lights and Sounds of the Carousel, however I plan to write freely, at a leisure, and with no plans to release anything in 2017. The earliest you'll see anything from me - I'm about 90% sure on this - will be in 2018, at the earliest. It takes me two years on whatever project I'm focused on, and I'm not about to rush anything just to have something out next year. I do plan, though, to write more fun blogs, find some additional outlets for my writing - maybe podcasting, perhaps? - and push what books are already in my arsenal. Anything else, well, we'll see.
For now, though, it's feet up, catching up on the books in my To-Read pile with warmer weather coming in on longer days, taking a long sigh of relief that I've done the best I can, and whatever comes next has no current deadline.
