4 Steps to Cure the "I Finished My First Draft" Blues

Hello once and future Campers! How are you feeling on this fine May day? Blissful and free, like the pollen drifting on the breeze from tree to tree? Exultant, like the alpenglow that graces the mountain peaks with the first light of day? Triumphant, like the grizzly bear, emerging from a long winter with her playful cubs?

If you are anything like me, those three similes probably just made you a little bit nauseous (I mean, pollen? Really? You know what that stuff is, right?). If you had a Camp NaNoWriMo experience similar to mine, you might be feeling a little spread thin. You might be feeling disillusioned. If you are anything like me, you might be feeling unsure as to how to fill these new blocks of free time. 

I’ve heard this feeling called the “Post-NaNo Blues.” The creative storm has passed, but the tornado never touched down and swept you permanently off to Novel-Oz. The work-a-day world has reemerged and it doesn’t look a whole lot different than it did on March 31. Rather than feeling like a celebrated novelist, you may feel more like a tortured writer burdened by an overlong draft of… something.

It’s time to, for lack of a better cliche, see the forest for the trees. In other words: let’s find perspective. This draft will be the rock on which you will build your great novel, one revision at a time. A possible course of action:

Entrust your novel to a close friend or family member (make sure you say “keep it secret, keep it safe”) and ask them to give it back to you in a month.
Go forth into the world armed with nothing but a pocket-sized notebook, and pause only long enough to jot down poignant, novel-y things. Immerse yourself in the “real world” with gusto. Try to live like your favorite characters.
Pick a book you’ve been meaning to read for awhile, or a book by an author who inspires you. Read it. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t do much non-required reading in April. Give your own voice a chance to recuperate by immersing yourself in the voice of another.
Once that month is up and you are reunited with your novel, with any luck, it will seem fresh and new again, ready for some revising. It won’t magically seem perfect, but I suspect that, with perspective, you’ll more easily find the energy to turn that coal into a diamond.

Finally, a little dose of perspective from the writing woes of another: James Joyce began writing Ulysses in 1906 as part of a short-story collection. He published the completed first edition of the novel in 1922. It was promptly banned in both the UK and the US, unavailable in English until the US repealed the ban in 1934.

Your journey is only just beginning. Congratulations on taking that first, crucial leap.

— Mike

Photo by Flickr user firexbrat.