Monday Miscellany

     Yesterday was one of my milestone days. I wrote "The End" to my fourth YA novel and sent if off to one of my readers. As I got up from my desk I heard a voice.

     "Now what?"

     "What is that supposed to mean?" I asked, dusting my desk, finding overdue bills and crumbs from that cheesecake snack last week.

     I got a smirk in response.

     By that afternoon you couldn't recognize this place. The laundry pile was GONE! Windows sparkly! Floors . . . you could see them. There was nothing stacked here and there.

   "Now what?"

   Where was that annoying guy, anyway?

   Who cared?

   I was off to the garden, or where the garden would be if the weeds were gone. And they were by five o'clock. Just in time too.

     Because that's when I remembered the promise I'd made last week--the one where I'd make this super deluxe gourmet meal just as soon as I finished my last chapter. Gourmet meant actually thinking of something gourmet ish; it meant actually going to the market, then finding those pans at the back of the cupboard and remembering the difference between sautéing and frying, how to carmelize . . . those kinds of technical cooking type things I used to do automatically before . . . novel writing.

     As I fell into bed and closed my eyes, self-satisfied and full of chicken cordon bleu, I heard, "Now what?"

     What do you do after you've wrapped up your year/six-month/however-long writing project? Do you find all of those hours free from writing a luxury? A challenge? Something that worries you because at this moment you've accomplished a goal and now have to set a new one?

    What's your answer to, "Now what?"

  

    As for me: After I finish my Monday Miscellany post, I'm off to town this morning. I've got some strolling to do and some books to buy at my local Indie, and then there's the library meeting tonight and the website update and Twitter and facebook. The review I wrote last month should be put up on Goodreads. My lists of agents and publishers need updating and I want to visit a few hundred blogs to say hi to friends. Oh, and that project I started a few years ago and never finished, that blockbuster-surefire-gold star winning book about the kid who's in all kinds of trouble . . . that has to be dug out of my C: drive and  . . . .







    







Sliding on the Edge, C. Lee McKenzie, WestSide Books, Spring '09