I have spent the past year eyeball deep in The Witch Queen series, rough drafting, revising, editing, and now I’m doing one final read-through for errors. I’m doing a preliminary line edit, I suppose, before my editor jumps in. I finished Whispers and am currently in the query trenches. Waiting.
I do not have a current project. There is no WIP on the backburner, cooking and stewing and slowly growing moss I can use as creative fuel; the burner is empty. It’s not even lit.
I am in the lull.
I don’t like the lull.
Is this how it feels to not be a writer? To not have a secondary world and characters and a plot cooking in the background?
This lull happens when I finish a project. I’ve experienced it several times. After Stars and Bones, I fell into the lull. The lull is a moment of peace, I suppose, before the next obsession grabs me, before the muse picks another book to write.
I feel empty.
I feel lost.
I feel like I should be doing something, but there is nothing to be done. I am done with the work on the book, and there is not another book to write at this moment. There is no “next chapter” to figure out, no plot hole to think about.
The longer the project, the deeper the lull. For Stars and Bones, I spend years with those characters. To be done with the series felt like I was losing someone. It was grief. Now that I am finished with The Witch Queen, a series which I have spent years building, I feel that same sense of emptiness and grief. Like I am losing a piece of my life. I have spent so long with these characters and the world, I feel like I’m losing friends.
I know that I will find a new series and dive in, because I have done it before, but right now, that feels impossible. The idea of falling in love with a new cast, a new world, and building it from the ground up feels overwhelming and impossible. How am I supposed to do it again?
There was an author, I don’t remember who or where, but they said something along the lines of every time you start a new project, it’s like you forget how to do everything. That’s what it feels like. There is this feeling of “where do I even start?” It’s overwhelming. It feels too big. It feels like what I want to do (what I just finished doing) is such a huge undertaking that I couldn’t possibly accomplish it.
Let me remind you and myself and I have written 3 fantasy series as of this moment. Two of them are published. I have like 3 revised standalones in my folder. I am querying a horror novel that I’ve been fighting with for years.
I’m not a fresh-faced aspiring author. I’ve been writing consistently since 2011. That’s when I started writing fanfiction.
I’ve published fourteen books.
And the idea of starting over feels daunting.
Yes, I have done it before. Several times. So, I know, logically, I will do it again.
But right now, this moment, there is nothing. The burner is empty. The stove is off. There is nothing cooking.
I came to the conclusion yesterday that it’s a little bit of burnout. My brain needs a rest. My creative bone needs a vacation and time to meditate and relax. I need to take a break from writing and focus on refilling my creative well. I need to give my muse the fuel in order to find the next project.
So, yesterday, I played a game about sorting books. I really like the sorting games. More than I thought I would. I literally spent eight hours on Sunday putting fictional books onto shelves. It was nice. It padded the melancholy. I thought about playing Skyrim too. Skyrim is great for refilling the creative well. Oh, I just remembered I have the Oblivion remaster on the PC.
My plan, as of right now, is to focus on refilling the creative well. I have a week off at the end of October, and I want to spend it working on something. I just don’t know what I want to work on. I need to give the muse time to figure it out.
