I feel very drained now that I have submitted my manuscript. I had another story in mind i wanted to start but i am having trouble getting to it cause of this feeling. Does anyone else fill this way after completing a major work? Is it normal ? Should I just take a break for a week before starting something new? Just looking for others opinions.
It's fairly normal to feel that way after any kind of major achievement. Take a break, go work in the garden or for long walks, and let yourself recharge for a little. If you're still recharging after a month and a half, then you can start to worry.
Great job! Congratulations! I think that's a natural feeling. Like Scattercat said, Take a break! Give yourself some time off. See how you feel afterwards...Don't worry about it now.
Congrats! You have been working with a deadline and now you are without one - it's normal to feel a bit adrift. I find when I complete something, I do something to reward myself - it gives you that finished feeling. After that, then jump back in and keep going. Even if you don't feel like it - action proceeds feeling. Even with writing....
Once I finish a MS, I feel like an old rag thats been wrenched repeatedly and tossed into the sink. I get so into the stories, and the tension of the plot, plus the pressure to finish, its very draining. I've written five and have taken one to two month hiatus between each. I can't imagine how people publish 3 or 4 a year (without ghost writers of course).
First of all, congratulations! :] Secondly, I agree with the others; take a break. You deserve it after working so hard! I'm sure you'll be more eager to start writing again once your brain has had a chance to rest.
Congratulations It's a good achievement. Like everyone else has already said: Take a break for while. You deserve it, and it will help your next project be written to it's best.
In truth, I usually feel empty and lost after finishing a major work (i. e., I have nothing left to do anymore) and so have to get right to work on something else! But that's just me and I fully understand feeling drained and needing a break. If that's the state you find yourself in then there's nothing wrong with it. In fact I probably just jump right into the next story because I have nothing better to do with my life! Taking a break is better than feeling resentful of your next project if you force yourself into starting it too soon.
speaking as both a mother of 7 and a writer who's turned out too many works to count, i can tell you from personal experience, that after nine months of 'growing' it, then interminable painful hours of labor 'delivering' it, no mother jumps up and is raring to get pregnant again, right away!... does that answer your question?
There is nothing to worry about, it just means you're procrastinating. Don't procrastinate. Really that simple. In fact I'm going to get back to writing right now. I don't have any set idea or inspiration, but I'm just going to trudge along on it.
You'd think that. I have a really hard time not procrastinating; I can always find a million and one things to distract myself, and suddenly, boom, it's six hours later and it's time to go to bed. (Or rather, about three hours past time to go to bed; that's how good I am at procrastinating!) I've got myself on a relatively mild "1000 words a day minimum" schedule right now, and I still find myself being kept up until three or four AM before I get the words done. So to me, a month and a half without writing more would indeed be something to worry about, because it means I'm seriously slipping...
How often do you guys and gals, actually finish whatever you start to write? For me, it's mostly fifty/fifty. I start a good number of stories, but half the time I abandon my work and write something else. And by abandon, I mean, I put aside in hopes of finishing later, either because the inspiration runs out. Or I feel like I am incapable of finishing it at the time, hoping that I can tackle the story when I become a better writer. So how about you?
Till now, I finish every story I have started, even though I haven't written a great number of stories. I do sometimes feel the story is turning out to be crap, but I still finish it hoping and promising to myself that I'll get to it someday and make it better. But finish I always. Then again I have written only short stories so far... a novel I think will be a totally different ball game.
I usually finish whatever it is I am writing. Sometimes, however, there are stories for which I have no ending in mind, and so I end up abandoning them.
I have a near 100% completion rate for short stories, and so far a 0% completion rate for novels, but I've only really attempted two, and I'm working on one of them right now.
Rarely. I'm getting better, but still not great. I find that I get really amped up with a great idea and a great start on my days off, but then I let it sit unattended during the work week, and then when I try to resume on my next days off, I've either run out of insipiration or I've forgotten where I was going with it.
When I was younger, I rarely finished anything. Then at 26 I finished a novel that sat on a shelf because I did not think it was marketable. (I just pulled it out and am thinking about seeing if I can make it marketable--at least I need to get it on the computer; I finished 13 years ago and was still using a typewriter.) Then I wrote very little for a few years. In my mid-thirties I started writing again on a semi-regular basis. In the last two years, I have managed to finish everything I started and in the last year have been pretty good about writing daily, if only a few pages. I was a little late in getting the discipline--but better late than never.
Never. Everything can be a bit better. Always. I dislike the concept of finishing what I started. It's giving up on the possibility of making it better.
Pretty much always. I have one novel I've abandoned, though I might send out query packages on it once I've sold other novels and can start querying proposals instead of finished novels. Otherwise, I always finish. I can't sell something that isn't done, not at this stage in my career (and really, I'll have to finish everything once it has sold anyway, so why not get in the habit?). Also, if I didn't finish things, how would I practice endings?
I can settle with publishing a version but that doesn't mean I'll stop considering it unfinished or trying to polish it further.
Yes, there is always the possibility of other great ideas striking for a particular story, but unless you actually implement those ideas in the story, you'll never know if it's working or not. So, I finish a story with whatever idea I have at the time and if better ideas strike later, I can always use it and rewrite the story. In fact, completing a story gives me a better understanding of the chars and hence, more often than not, I get better ideas to improve the story. And also as a writing discipline, it's very important for a writer to be able to complete a story, even as he leaves open the option to improve it further.
