I have a new piece over at writing.ie on the blue feelings after finishing writing a novel.
A wee extract: 'For me, when the writing is going well, it makes me crazily happy; I get swallowed up in it and time flitters away like it never does when I am on kid duty. Having finished writing another novel this summer, I now realise that the long haul of novel writing suits me perfectly.'
The rest of the article is here.
11 comments:
This rings very true - off to read the rest of your article...
Great quotes and insight. I am immersed right now and I am so tetchy about giving up writing time for all the random interruptions I get - mental making - when all I want to do is write - typically (as the world does conspire) my kids have come down with every virus imaginable in the last few weeks!
Post natal depression after finishing a book is difficult. You create out of nothing, then go back to it. That's the crux of the matter. Don't agree with John Banville about failure. The achievement is in the doing and finishing.
So true, Rachel. When I am immersed I don't want callers, phonecalls, emails, kids. Nothing! I like that preciousness - it feels protective and it is.
Book PND. A good description, Claire.
Though I have to laugh when people call their books their 'babies'. Clearly they have never had a baby...
I suppose the 'failure' is to do with the grand vision. Hoping that this time we will be properly proud of what we produce and we never are.
I wonder as I read your extract is it like a big sigh and then the drumming of the fingers. Like a restlessness, a wondering, what’ll I do now? a sort of limbo. Even though I know you’ve millions of other writing and all the mothering / house running things you have to do. And although I don't how you're really feeling, I think that this was just something all for you and it was exciting and you know and love the characters and now it’s all over. I know it’ll pass for you but unsettling while you’re going through it all the same…
Love Claire’s description Book PNB brilliant!
p.s. Love the new layout for the blog!
Kar - Yes, restlessness is what it feels like. A feeling of something being taken away. Like Banville, I was giddy for all of a few minutes. Ate a dark chocolate egg. Waddled around. Then I felt a huge loss.
I'm grand now - back in story heaven :) and it's going well. I'm on a productive streak, thankfully.
p.s. I play with the layout when I get fed up looking at the old one :)
A very good article Nuala.
I know what you mean by being safe in your novel's world. It's so intimate and its a world you have created that no one gets to 'see' until they read it...and then it's gone from you.
The new layout is lovely.
Thanks Ór.
Yes, literally no one sees it except an editor/publisher/agent until it's released (if it's released) to the world. It's an odd bargain.
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