The time between books
I will hazard a guess that I am not the only author having a hard time coping with the 'time between books'. What I found writing part one of my fantasynovel 'De Krakenvorst' is that writing is as essential to me as breathing. Okay, so maybe not that essential, because I don't die if I don't write for a few minutes, but my creativity, my imagination is core to who I am. Making up new worlds and stories that take place in them is what Johan is supposed to do. And I find that if I haven't exercised this part of my brain on a given day, I cannot really feel as if I had a good day. I don't feel fulfilled. And that leads to me not being able to cope with stress during the day that well, and to a detoriation of my sleep, and well, depression. The 'post book dip' more authors experience.
This time the depression was not as bad as it could have been, though!
In the first place I started drawing again, another old hobby of mine. I make drawings of scenes in my stories or make up new planets, and new lifeforms. This feels creative enough to give fulfillment. I even started thinking of making my own graphic novel one day!
In the second place I started writing a feuilleton for my blog, a story in 17 parts (14 published at the moment). Inspired by the SF novel '2312' by Kim Stanley Robinson I thought of a scenario about an explorer in a world where there's nothing left to explore. I think it's one of the best stories I have written yet.
In the third place I had work to do on my novel 'De Derde Macht' as my editor gave in depth suggestions on the text. As any author who feels slightly protective of his or her work, I procrastinated a while before I dared look at her remarks. They were largely positive, but I had to do some rewriting especially with regards to the central relationship in the novel. The last few days I have been busy doing revisions and writing an acknowledgments-page. I do believe the book is better now than it has ever been, and am thankful for all the work the editor, Mieke, has put in it. She clearly had the best interests of the work at heart, and had the patience too to deal with an author who's just a tiny bit sensitive ...
In this way I managed to thrive for the last three months, even between books, but this time of hardship is now over. For this week I will start to work at the second part of 'De Krakenvorst'. First I will have to create an outline, then the joyful (but sometimes hard and exhausting) work of creating the story can begin. I look forward to not being 'between books' for the next eight or nine months!
This time the depression was not as bad as it could have been, though!
In the first place I started drawing again, another old hobby of mine. I make drawings of scenes in my stories or make up new planets, and new lifeforms. This feels creative enough to give fulfillment. I even started thinking of making my own graphic novel one day!
In the second place I started writing a feuilleton for my blog, a story in 17 parts (14 published at the moment). Inspired by the SF novel '2312' by Kim Stanley Robinson I thought of a scenario about an explorer in a world where there's nothing left to explore. I think it's one of the best stories I have written yet.
In the third place I had work to do on my novel 'De Derde Macht' as my editor gave in depth suggestions on the text. As any author who feels slightly protective of his or her work, I procrastinated a while before I dared look at her remarks. They were largely positive, but I had to do some rewriting especially with regards to the central relationship in the novel. The last few days I have been busy doing revisions and writing an acknowledgments-page. I do believe the book is better now than it has ever been, and am thankful for all the work the editor, Mieke, has put in it. She clearly had the best interests of the work at heart, and had the patience too to deal with an author who's just a tiny bit sensitive ...
In this way I managed to thrive for the last three months, even between books, but this time of hardship is now over. For this week I will start to work at the second part of 'De Krakenvorst'. First I will have to create an outline, then the joyful (but sometimes hard and exhausting) work of creating the story can begin. I look forward to not being 'between books' for the next eight or nine months!
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