Am feeling a bit soggy and weepy at the moment, and it's not really due to the quiz result below. I just went up to the post office and posted the manuscript of Suite Seventeen off to my agent. And now I feel as if a child or close friend has gone away and left me. I always feel a bit blue at the end of a book, both when I finish the first draft and when I actually send it out into the world. First draft blues are because the story is told and even if I have to rewrite bits and add bits, the plot is essentially resolved and I've got my characters to their happy ending and they don't need me any more. Posting off blues are just as intense. It's gone. I won't be working on it any more. I have to leave these characters and get to know new ones. Okay, there's the proof checking, but by then, it's like a book written by somebody else in a way. The intimate connection is broken by that stage.
Suite Seventeen is a particularly poignant one to lose because I've been working on it a long time, and I've had some pretty serious ups and downs with it. It's been hard! But after a struggle, I feel I got there in the end and it's a pretty good book... and the feedback from my critique partner tells me that I'm not wrong in being quietly pleased with the outcome. Whether readers will like it... well, who knows? Different people look for different things in books, esp. in the area of romance, erotic romance and women's erotica... but hopefully, people will enjoy Annie's racy sexual adventure and the love she finds in the course of it. And I know that a certain special group of readers will hopefully appreciate the unique charms of Valentino in the light of the remarkable actor whose appearance and thespian skills inform him! ;)
In other news, I'm keenly scrutinising the weather as tomorrow - fingers crossed - is another of my splendid writers' lunches with my special author buddy, Saskia Walker... A little bit of rain or chilliness will certainly not put us off, but if there's a torrential monsoonlike downpour we may have to regroup and reconvene...
6 comments:
I can imagine how you feel... but I am so looking forward to it
Ann(ie) and Valentino... hmmmmm
We'll chase of your post-book blues tomorrow ;-) Looking forward to it!!
I always feel that way too...but I have faith in you that it's going to be a fantastic book.
Can't wait for the birth!
Thanks for the kind wishes, folks!
I think the 'birth' should be next June some time. I expect there to be an Amazon listing very shortly. The cover's being worked on at the moment. Fingers crossed for a good 'un!
As far as I know, Ann, 'the man' hasn't been approached to pose... ;)
I know just how you feel Wendy. I find it odd that EO has only just come out and people are talking to me about it when I've moved on and now all I care about are my wolves. But try and tell me right now that I will ever move on from them and I won't hear it!
I was talking about this today and another writer friend pointed out that it doesn't take long for the obsession to fade and for the book to be just a book. I think it's knowing that that makes us so reluctant to let go.
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