Between-book Guilt

This post exists because I need to run a giveaway for UNGODLY ARCs soon, but I just featured one for SLASHER GIRLS ARCs, and I refuse to have two giveaway posts in a row. I don’t know why.

This post also exists to talk about my current experiences with Between-book Guilt, better known as, Downtime Guilt.

As some of you may be aware, I’m between books. That is, UNGODLY is off to the presses and THREE DARK CROWNS is with my editor being…edited upon, which leaves me here, all alone with no book, and no real necessity to start a new book until I finish edits on THREE D.

Joy! Some of you writers may be saying. Rapture! No deadlines breathing down your neck? No novel poking you in the head during dinner? Why aren’t you on your knees crying, “FREEDOM!” like Mel Gibson in Braveheart only less because your intestines are out and more because of yay?

And it’s true. Enjoy your downtime, people! Writers or otherwise, you’ve earned it. That’s what you’ve worked so diligently and efficiently for.

Except every time I sit down to read, or play Final Fantasy: Lightning Returns, or sit down anywhere that isn’t in front of my computer, I feel guilty. I don’t know when this started happening, but I suspect it was when I started to work exclusively from home.

I have other home-working pals who express the same guilt, and I’ve always told them to never feel guilty for taking time for themselves. How unpleasant to discover that all my assurances over the years have done no good. I know, because people say the same thing to me now, and I still feel guilty even writing this blog post. Every few lines I stop and yell out, “Quit whining, a-hole! Go write a book!”

Or, do anything that feels like work. Surely there’s SOMETHING I ought to be doing.  Old manuscripts I could shine up? New, experimental ideas to explore? And couldn’t the house be cleaner?

I could start the next book, I suppose. Except that edits from the first one might render what I start unusable, and when I think about that I would hurl, if only I had a tiny paper cup to hurl into.

Now I’m fighting the urge to list off all the writing-related work I’ve done in the last month so I’ll appear to be less of a huge, lazy, loser. But I won’t. I refuse!

UNGODLY ARC Giveaway will start next week.