In The Interim

Well, I finsihed my WIP by my July 13th deadline. I also hit my 85k word count almost exactly. All in all I'm extemely happy with the finsihed product which I've put through the first round of revisions. But I've been wondering what I should do now that I'm done.

I still have a previous novel out on submission so this book will have to sit and stew until I've heard back from a couple of people. Then there's further revisions and critiques. No matter how anxious I am, I have to face the fact that I can't send this book out for a long time. I've tried twice to work on my query, but that's a slow and tedious process because I absolutely hate writing queries. And to those of you who love to write them (Elana), WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? ;)

So what to do? Well, the answer came to me (again) by way of my friend Suzanne who I've asked to write a poem for the intro. She agreed on the condition that I write a history of the creatures that I've made up for my novel. What a great idea!

Making up the many fantasy species for this book was harder than I'd thought it would be. I did a lot of research, looked up some old folk legends, and used some old stories to lay down my ground work. I knew what my characters strengths and weakness would be, assigned characteristics and so on, but beyond that, the many players had no history to back up their existence.

Laying down a difinitive history is giving a true identity to my characters. Their lineage isn't important to the book, but it is important to me. Plus, its a great exercise in character development, to know who begat whom and how he or she came about, etc, etc. I get to really flex my creative mucscles by constructing family trees, feuds and marriages. Plus, in the long run the history that I'm writing could lead to future projects and a reference companion to those projects.

I have to admit that when I don't have something to write I kind of feel lost. I wander around my house like there's something I've forgotten to do and I plunk down in front of my computer, staring at the blank screen with my fingers poised and ready for no reason.

I hate the interim. Thanks Suzanne for giving my fingers something to do!

Let me know what you do in your "in between time". Do you immediately start a new project, work on revisions, write your query or synopsis? Or do you simply wander aimlessly in circles around your laptop?