The In Between

The first draft is done. Those words flew out my brain almost faster than I can type. (Almost. I’m a speedy typist.) And now…

… I wait.

… I congratulate myself.

… I tell my sister.

… I tell The Man.

… we do a happy dance.

… I eat an extra dessert.

… I decide that one scene needs to be longer.

… and the scene where you-know-who does you-know-what needs to go.

… I realize there are a lot of blanks I’m going to need to fill in.

… I understand that my love interest is boring.

… and I need to give him more of a personality.

… if I bother editing.

… this sucks.

Right. So I’m going through the in-between moment where I’m staying away from my WIP for several weeks. Yet it’s constantly in my head, which is annoying at times. (Like when someone’s trying to have a real conversation with me and that someone expects a response.) It’s at this time that the self-doubt sets in.

Maybe it’s horrible. Maybe it’s boring. Maybe it’s the most horrible and most boring novel EVER WRITTEN!!!! (Yes, that’s a four exclamation point kind of emotion.) Then I realize that 1) Walden is the most boring book ever written and I’m sorry if you love Henry David Thoreau, but it’s a fact. And 2) I must write better than a celebrity (coughcoughSnookicoughcough) and I feel better.

And then my sister says she loves it. And I feel a lot better. Even if it’s just my sister.

I will edit this. I will right the wrongs. I will add and subtract and dish out personalities like Halloween candy.

What do you during your In Between? Read? Start another story? Watch bad TV? Hibernate?