I admit: It has not been easy to switch from Duality to another novel. I lived, breathed, and agonized over my debut novel for nearly a year. I thought of little else, even when forced to distance myself from the book to make room for Real Life. I was and still am elated to have finished it, and I look forward to the input from my beta readers and from the editor. I even dove right into working on the next novel, to be published sometime next year, only to finally realize the flaw in my thought process.
I miss Duality. I miss the characters, the banter, the relationships that were formed. I feel unfaithful; as though I’m cheating on them with this new group. It’s as if I’ve rendezvoused to another city to meet my lovers in secret, and now I’m dallying with them and daring anyone to find out. What in the world!?
Don’t get me wrong – I am greatly enjoying writing the new novel, but there is quite a bit of separation anxiety for me right now. I wonder if it’s like this in other careers – musicians or actors – where you get so used to a certain set of songs from an album, or you’ve method-acted a certain part for so long (especially in a long-running television series) that, when it’s time to do something else, you fight against it just a little bit.
Will it be like this each time, I wonder? The first few days were difficult, but I do see that it’s starting to get a bit better as each day passes. I’ll have to switch hats yet again in about a month, once the beta readers are done and I’ll need to dive back into Duality to make adjustments before sending it off to be finalized. Hopefully, being away from the book for – at that point – six weeks will have renewed my perspective and give me a fresh viewpoint so that I can do it justice with that final pre-publication review. And, no, I haven’t forgotten that I’ll need to make the announcement of the publication date for Duality. It’s coming, not to worry.
In the meantime, there’s my second novel to focus on and others after that. Oh, you’d better believe that there will be more! I’ve even got the preliminary groundwork laid for the novel that will come AFTER this – novel number three! I wonder if the “favorite child” analogy that I’ve used before might not apply only to editing, but to actually writing the books as well. I may one day be asked which of my books is a favorite. The audacity! But, before I can pretend astonishment at that imagined scenario, I need to publish more than one book, hmm?
