GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #68: INTERMISSION

Whenever I finish the first draft of a novel, it always leaves me in a weird position. I take a few days off from writing, and then I have to figure out what I want to do next. I can't just launch into the next draft, because I'm just not ready for it yet. I need to let it cool down. I need to become unfamiliar with it, so I can edit the fuck out of it later. I'm a hard-ass when it comes to editing other people's shit, but when it comes to my own? Not so much. I have to wait at least a month before I can do the next draft because when I become unfamiliar with it, I can pretend it's someone else's book. And then I can be a hard-ass again.


I always work on short stories in that time, but right now, I have so many ideas, I don't know what to work on. There's an army of them marching through my mind. I've got notes on all of them, but wrestling one of the fuckers down is always hard for me. I never know if I'm feeling one of them when I start. If I lose interest quickly, I've chosen poorly, so I have to make sure that I'm right the first time.


Oddly enough, I have a shit-ton of ideas for novels right now. That never happens after I've finished a first draft of a novel. I'm almost tempted to start work on one of them instead.


I've been writing since I was a little kid. I've been writing professionally since high school. You would think by now, fourteen years after I graduated college, my idea mill would have slowed down. But no, it's only going faster and faster. Sometimes, I wonder if I'll survive long enough to get these ideas out of my head and onto paper (or my computer monitor; fuck, you get the idea). Not only that, but I'm juggling so many things aside from writing, like Strange Story Saturdays, Forced Viewing, The Cocaine! Bros. and so much more.


And then? Then there's the lazy side of me that wants to sit back, relax and let shit work itself out. That works for some writers, but looking back on my own life, it really doesn't work for me. I have to stomp that odd compulsion out like the insect it is.


I won't be writing tomorrow. Instead, I'll be working on what I'm going to write the next day. Wish me luck.