I have finished my novel and have just completed my last edit...I thought the two before this one were the last,hey ho what do I know! Now I am sure I can go no further as I am too close to see any work that needs doing, that is now up to an editor, fingers crossed! This has nothing to do with actual writing, but it's this end bit where all the hours of "writie" stuff stops, the first part of the story is finished and the nest is empty, until I start the second of the trilogy I feel like my child has left home. (I'm not quite ready to start the next yet, still letting go) Please tell me it's not just me and I can cancel the session with my psychiatrist? Regards hoping for more like me, Paul.
Thank you both, it has helped. I actually enjoyed the re-writes and the reading aloud, might I add alone!!! No ear shall hear how mine own mouth doth portray my thoughts. I am looking forward to the next part of the story if only to know what happens next, not a joke... It is somewhat of a relief to know that this odd feeling is not just me. I really did consider something just might be amiss.
If I don't get the chance to get back on the site before the big day, may I wish you both, and everyone else who happens across this post, a very HAPPY Christmas and a new year of joy hope and success
Jonathan, Adrian. Again thank you. My warmest regards, have fun at Christmas you have my permission. Paul G.
Sometimes it's never finished. I could re-edit my first two stories if I let myself...but I mostly resist the temptation nowadays.
If you've plans for your story stick with them but start the new book as well. Once you've begun that those old bedfellows frustration, self-doubt and anxiety will soon reappear, whispering in your shell-like, and you'll forget how sick you got of re-reading Volume 1.
Or maybe you didn't, in which case well done! Personally I eventually decided both my two MCs needed slapping, their mistakes and reactions were so obvious. Or maybe only to me.
But don't do anything just yet because... it's Christmas!! Eat, drink, be merry. Read a favourite author and pick holes in his/her narrative, for a giggle. Pretend you're Ernest Hemingway if you're into big game hunting (or other things of a more sexual nature and not for a mixed audience). Anything but write a novel.
Then, in the New Year, get stuck back in . You know 'take a break' makes sense.
Seasons greetings :)
That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward - Ernest Hemingway