Writing Blog

20231009 Aftermath

October 9, 2023, 7:15am

Here is something about the way my brain "works"... for want of a better term.

After completing a novel or novella (basically anything fiction over 20k words), it feels great.

And then I crash.

Yesterday - Sunday my time - I crashed. I left the room where I am staying to go to the toilet and to have something to eat around 5pm. I can't tell you what I was thinking about because I don't know. I watched a lot of wrestling, listened to some music, wrote a column for Weekend Notes and yet just mentally lost it. She was working, but that wasn't even an issue.

This happens every time. I finish some great work, and then my brain shuts down. I kept coming onto WdC, but could not bring myself to interact as much as usual. It's like my head has run a marathon and needs recovery time. I still wrote my daily word count minimum, but that was out of obligation, not creativity.

I wonder how many other writers have this feeling - finished a big project and then just crash and burn after for a day or so.

What normally happens to me now is there are some ideas churning around and I'll write (or at least start) a short story or two, a few poems, maybe an essay, which I put down to the spit after a vomit. I throw up a novel, then have to spit out what else is in there, and shorter works emerge.

Anyway, just another look into my writing process.