Stages of Writing

I amuse myself when I consider my relationships with the books I'm writing, in that they're likely representative of the worst qualities of being an Aries guy. I'll try to explain it:

New Romance
Honeymoon Period
True Love (or Hate, if it doesn't work)
Waning Romance
Sick of It
Done and Gone

Best-case scenario: I write a book I love, I genuinely adore it while I'm working on it, and even when I'm revising it, the ardor is still there.

However, once I finish the book (which is to say, I've made it the best I possibly can), I walk away from it. The revision/rewriting time is that critical, liminal space where I do the best I can for the book and it either succeeds or fails.

Again, best-case is it succeeds. Worst-case is it fails somehow. I truly do the best I can for it, but sometimes a book won't work out.

Either way, once I'm done with a book, I'm DONE. I'm already on to the next book idea, which has captivated me.

Only a couple of times have I ever struggled with a book (the most notorious one for me was THE HAPPENING, which cased a 6-to-9-month existential crisis for me that actually halted me in my tracks). Those are my dysfunctional book relationships.

Most of them work out smoothly, but as I said above, when I'm done, I'M DONE. A finished book is unwelcome in my headspace, because I'm already attuned to the next book.

RETURN TO SUMMERVILLE (current WIP) is in that more dysfunctional space for me, likely because my aforementioned "moving on" from the horror genre, leading to some push/pull between me and this book.

I'm wrapping up final revisions for this one this weekend, and then it'll be in my rearview mirror before I drive off, leaving it stranded by the roadside. I hope readers enjoy it, because I've already moved on.

R.E.M. | (Don't Go Back to) Rockville