Well, I finished my book a couple of weeks back and, exhausted as I was, I took a few weeks to relax and reflect, momentarily ignoring my resolutions. It’s been pretty terrible, though. I’m really, really bad at living aimlessly. When I’m not making and achieving goals I feel grumpy and at a loss and I get really frustrated with my regular responsibilities like my day job and cooking meals.
I actually had a huge whinge about the necessity of eating to hubby dearest so he took me out for takeaway, which, of course, made me feel lazy and fat. See? When I don’t feel like I’m achieving anything I become an absolutely horrible person. Poor, poor Michael.
So I’m starting back up with my goal making-and-achieving this weekend. I already have my to-do list and I’m pretty excited. There is just one problem and it is, of course, to do with writing. Now I’ve finished my novel and I’ve begun planning #2 (unfortunately planning doesn’t make me feel like I’ve achieved much as there are very few definable landmarks) I don’t know what to do next.
Should I:
1. Start revising novel #1 (even though many writers say you need a couple of months between writing and revising in order to achieve the necessary distance from the work that revising requires) ?
Or should I:
2.Start writing novel #2 ( the problem with this being that I’m worried I haven’t done enough prepping. I’m worried that I will start too soon and the novel will die a terribly withered death. But this could be just a writerly superstition just like the above)?
In the meantime I’m writing a synopsis for book #2 and organising the study ready to revise book #1 (I figure something that requires me to be ultra-analytical requires a clean and ordered space in which to analyse)
So what do you think? Option 1 or option 2?
