It’s strange, having completed a draft and floating in this weird in-between phase. After months of having a daily writing goal, to suddenly be without one feels alien, like suddenly sprouting a third arm I’ve no idea what to do with. The time freed up is significant, to be sure, but more than the time, I’m distracted by the very lack of guidance. My brain is doing laps like a caffeinated hamster fleeing for its life from imaginary cats.

So I had to write something.

And I ended up coming here and writing nothing. I feel incredibly off kilter and at sea, having finished this latest draft. Like my creative energies have waned past a point that they cannot regenerate. Like I don’t know if I can go through all that again, even for the sake of editing this latest work.

Deep breath.

I don’t currently have any deadlines, and that’s okay.

I am allowed to be idle for a little while in between project phases. This restless feeling is probably normal, and probably necessary.

The world will not tumble off its axis, nor my head off my shoulders, because I didn’t write anything substantial today.

My draft, and indeed my brain, need this time for the dust to settle so that I can see where things lie with clear eyes before I come back with the editorial sledgehammers and wrecking bars to tear it all to pieces again.

But in the meantime, man. What am I going to do? I hear good things about knitting. Maybe I should learn to knit.