The Novel's Done. What Now?

Last night I sent my finished draft of Shifter 2 (S2) to my crit group. It's out of my hands for a month while they poke and prod at it and give me all kinds of wonderful feedback on how to make it better. I could continue to tweak while they're reading, but it's always good to get some distance between edits. Makes the work feel fresher.

This morning, I'm wondering what to do. I'm not ready to start Shifter 3. S2 is going to go through lots of revisions before it's done, so there's no telling what might change. I have half of another book done that I put aside to finish S2, but it seems silly to fudge around with that knowing I'm going to dive into revisions soon.

A lot of writers (and books on writing) say to be a writer you have to write every day. To that, I say, Bah. To be a writer, you just need to write, and how you use your time is totally up to you. There are so many dos and don'ts that it's easy to feel stifled if you try to follow the rules to the letter. Writing is stressful enough as it is; you don't need to heap extra pressure on yourself cause someone somewhere said you had to.

So what am I doing on my month off?

I'll probably just goof around and let the brain juice refill. I'm a firm believer in breaks, which is why I don't write every day. In fact, if I do write every day I get burned out fast. I might start researching the world building for another book idea I had. It'll be a year before I can get to it, but the planning process takes time, and it's a great way to stay creative while I'm not writing. I'll play some games, try to win all four victories on Deity mode in Civilization: Revolution (man this mode is HARD!), try not to get sucked back into WoW to see if the Death Knight is really as cool as it looks. (Hubby is playing, I suspect it IS as cool as it looks). I'll read and cut my to-read pile down so I can buy more books. (Just got hooked on the "Private" series by Kate Brian). Burn Notice is gone until summer, so I'll handle my withdrawal by watching season one over again.

And next month when my crits come in, I'll be up to my ears in revisions. But I'll be refreshed and ready for them.

Now, where's that PS3 controller....