For the past nine years, I haven’t taken a break between books.
That’s a long time. For nine years, I’ve had a book to work on, whether I’m on vacation with my family, on book tour, off somewhere at a conference. My laptop is always with me. A book is always in progress. I always have a looming deadline.
It’s hard. It’s not horrible, not by a longshot…but it is hard. Writing books takes a lot of mental energy.
A couple of weeks ago, I passed in the last book on my contract—my seventeenth manuscript. I now have two books with my publisher that will come out in 2017, one in January, and one sometime after that. I did my copyedits, my author alterations, I wrote a speech for Romance Writers of America’s national conference, I worked on the four workshops I’ll be participating in, I read the agenda and made notes for the three-day RWA board meeting that precedes the five-day conference. I packed up my promotional stuff and gifts for librarians since I love librarians who love romance.
And…I rested. For the first time in nine years, I’m not working on a new book. It didn’t make sense to start something, then have to leave it for a big conference all the way across the country. I’ll start after the conference, but for now…nah.
So I’ve been normal. It’s kind of strange. I’ve had a real vacation, despite all the other stuff named above. I’ve slept late. I took a few naps. I even cooked! I watched a sunset. I visited friends and talked on the phone. I painted. I picked flowers. I’ve been reading a lot. Sitting on our porch. I weeded. I love weeding.
In our busy world, where there are always more demands to do more, do better, do faster, seize the moment, get things done, be everything to everyone…well, it’s awfully nice to take a breath.
I hope you get to do the same.
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