The Life and Death of a Story

All my life I have loved to read.  I hope that never changes. 

When I finish a book, I have a mourning period.  This isn’t anything I do on purpose, it just kind of happens.  I race to get to the end of the book, ecstatic to discover the ending and what happens to all the characters.  I giggle with glee as I add the title to my booklog.  (Yes, I really do keep track of all the books I read.  I am a nerd.  I can’t help it.)  I have an entire shelf of books waiting to be read, so availability is not a problem.  Eventually I do select the next lucky volume, and by the end of the first chapter I am no longer grieving for the last book.

Now I just have to hope the same goes for writing books.  Almost seven years ago, shortly after the birth of my first daughter, I wrote a children’s book called Simon’s Perfect Web.  That was the last thing I wrote for a long time.  I would like to say that this was such an awesome book that my mourning lasted that long, but that really isn’t the case. 

I have since turned Simon into an ebook, and have written a 17,000-word novelette that will seen be for sale as an ebook as well.  I can tell you I am very much in mourning over my novelette!  I was very attached to some of the characters, and even when I wasn’t actively writing I was plotting the storyline out in my head.  It all started with just one simple idea that I wasn’t sure how to use, and has morphed into an entire book.   And now, it’s over.  Just over.

I’ve had some other ideas for books here and there, and scribbled them down in my notebook.  I’ve been very distracted by sending submissions of Simon’s Perfect Web to publishers, figuring out how to launch a freelance business, and bisecting the basics of blogging.  I even actually sat down to start the next book the other night, but I just didn’t have my heart in it.

Surely this will end soon.  I will be able to cast of the veil of mourning and dash headlong and fancy free into the madness of writing again.  Meanwhile, I will stand by the notion that chocolate and Cherry Coke fixes anything, and head to the grocery store.