The last three weeks have been busy with travel, family, grandkids, new friends, and the sudden summer blossoming of our quiet little town. I know a writer needs to live a life in order to write about life, and it’s nothing to feel guilty about. Slacking off a bit can be a good thing. That’s why people go on holiday, right?
But there comes a time…
The blank page usually doesn’t intimidate me much, but today, it did a bit. Perhaps this is because I’m still working on editing my 300+ page manuscript. Shifting from the manuscript to short pieces, often unrelated to the world I’ve been immersed in there, somehow makes me feel as though I’ve stepped off a solid granite mountain and found my feet negotiating the shifting sands of the desert.
I miss my characters, the forest where they live, all of their mistakes and longings—their journey! I miss the routine of our daily time together. It’s sort of like when you were a kid and school let out for the summer. There was the initial lift of spirit, the release from the multitudinous details of navigating between the academic aspects and the social ones, the waking up to a beautiful June morning, knowing it was yours. There’s nothing that quite compared.
At some point though, there may have come nostalgia for the kids who had populated your classroom, the lunchroom, the playground, the sports field, or the band room. Some of them were crushes, past, present, and maybe future. The wheel of time spun like the one on Wheel of Fortune; you never knew where your destiny lay.
There would be some kids you wouldn’t see all summer, some you would never see again (hopefully, those would be the bullies). If you had a teacher you loved, she/he would be getting a whole new class. You would no doubt be replaced by strangers who would occupy all of your teacher’s thoughts, and possibly, heaven forbid, even her heart.
And then would come the nervous excitement of the year to come. Part dread, part eagerness. Close at hand was the tantalizing possibility of meeting someone altogether new, maybe someone cute, or funny, or someone just meant to be your lifetime friend. That’s what wrapping up a long writing project feels like to me. It’s all of that and more.
Hoping all of your milestones, old and new, bring you joy and satisfaction. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
LakeArrowheadLadyWriter 