Looking into the tunnel

I turned SUMMER BLUE over to my critiquers a couple of weeks ago. Comments are starting to come back, and I’m gearing up to start writing again. The next two weeks are going to be pretty hellacious while I finish up this final draft, before turning the novel over to my editor at the end of the month.

I’ve really enjoyed my time off. Not so much not writing (because I’ve worked on some short fiction in the interval) but the not having to write. I’ve taken days off before, but I’ve always felt like I should be writing when I do that. I’ve kept the past two weeks amazingly guilt free. I knew needed the time off, away from the novel, so I let myself feel good about it.

I know this sounds silly, but that was an important discovery for me. It isn’t enough to grant myself time off. I also need to let myself feel good about that time off.

During the last couple of days I’ve had conversations with more than one person about indulgences. I indulge myself in very few things. I’m on a pretty strict diet. I have a very strict schedule. So my indulgences have been almost laughed at, because they’re so minor. But I treasure them. They are:

–baths. I take long soaking baths with scented oils and bubbles, drink wine and look at catalogs (either pen-porn, like Levengers, or house-porn, like Pottery Barn.)

–chocolate. I order my chocolate from here: http://www.chocosphere.com. This is the *good* stuff. Check out Dolfin. Dark chocolate infused with Earl Grey tea. Yum. And Galler, 85% cocoa. Need I say more?

So I’ve decided now that time off is also an indulgence for me. I generally take every Friday off and don’t write. So now, I’m going to try to enjoy it, and not feel guilty.

A short bit about one of the critiques that I’ve already received: I *love* this critiquer. He’s my character guy. He goes through and looks at character arcs, telling me where to strengthen them, where to deepen them, etc. This time, he determined that one of the main characters has 6 different primary characteristics. So he went through the entire novel and listed every page where one of these characteristics is manifest, then talked with me about how to even them out, make them flow better, so the character isn’t perceived as schizoid or something.

Have I mentioned how much I adore this guy?

He isn’t a professional writer – he’s actually the only critiquer I have who isn’t a writer. He’s a masseur by profession. He and I had talked about the previous book, and he’d asked to see a copy of the draft I was sending out to my critiquers. I figured, why not? When I took him out to lunch to talk about it, he gave me one of the best character critiques I’d ever received. And he just did it again.

So – I’m off to go take a long soak. And drink some scotch, cause my back is still being iffy.

And tomorrow? Hitting the grind again.