When the Well Runneth Dry…

I am capable of writing for hours on end. Ask my local Starbucks barista. I work my normal 9-6 job, grab a quick bite, and I’m at my keyboard until midnight. There have been times I’ve taken over a table for a spell of ten hours (or in Starbucks time: a caffe mocha, skinny vanilla latte, and Zen tea) with twenty-five pages to show for it. Case in point. I began TOUCHED in December 2008 and finished in March 2009. That’s an average of 105 pages a month, and that doesn’t include about 50 pages I cut. Factor in a week I took off for the holidays and another two weeks when I had pneumonia (from overworking myself, obviously), and I was a writing maniac with no social life and way too much caffeine pumping through my veins.

And I’d give anything to be in the middle of that again. The story poured out of me during those months. It became this OTHER, a living, breathing entity that lived outside of me. I felt driven to get it down on paper. It’s hard to explain how alive I felt describing the world my characters were living in or how they lives affected each other. If I had to pick one word to describe that time, I’d say, CONTENT. And because I write, here are some others… Happy, thrilled, maniacal. The last because no one can live at that pace for long and not be a maniac. I actually wore the little labels off the keys on my keyboard. Thank goodness I touch-type or the N and D keys would be forever lost to me.

Now, I’m starting a new project. I’m in that dry spell before an idea really takes hold of you and makes you crazed with passion. A little nerve-wracking because a question whistles through the wind and the heat, “What if I never feel that way about a story again?” But also a little breathless excitement because is that a mirage I see on the horizon or my next big idea?