My brain is still processing that the first complete draft of Joshua’s Nightmares is finished. That the little red notebook of world-building has grown into a two-hundred-and-ninety-three page behemoth. I’m still really geeking out over all that, actually. In terms of page count, it’s four times as long as the story I wrote for my Thesis Seminar at Edinboro University.

And now what? I’ve sent off copies to friends I know will really dig for anything that could use fixing, and I find myself floating in a sort of limbo. I would go so far as to say this feels like I just sent my only child off to college, and I’m being that awful parent who started sobbing before I’d even gotten off the campus after saying goodbye.

My question to you, fellow writerly-folks, is how do you cope with that sudden absence of something where there was once a big project?

I could, theoretically, get started on Book 2 while the characters are fresh in my mind, but is that the best possible way to go?

All things considered, I am very happy with how the first draft turned out. It grew from a couple paragraphs that got stuck back last year, before I moved, to what it is now. There was something very energizing about getting back to writing regularly, and feeling good about what I was creating, so now I’m just wondering where I’ll channel some of that wild and crazy energy until the time for the bulk of the editing starts.