Author Blues

For the last month, I've been trudging through the standard, mild depression almost every author feels when she ships a book to the publisher or book printer. Luckily, several of the books about the writing profession warned of this, so it didn't come as a surprise. And so far, I've felt it every time I shipped a new book out.

This time, I analyzed the phenomenon more thoroughly. Initially, there's a tendency to argue with yourself, thinking What the heck's wrong with me? I should be ecstatic! Dancing on air! Celebrating." But thoughts like that don't help when you're feeling down. And I finally realized there are two very logical factors playing into this funk:

(1) Writing a book takes a long time - months, sometimes years. In that time, it becomes your constant companion. You work, eat, sleep and shower with it. And you're pouring your whole being into the work to produce the very best book possible. When you ship the manuscript off, you're saying good-bye to that dear friend, companion, work-mate. And the emotional hole it leaves in your life hurts. The sudden loss of a "loved one" always makes us feel a little bereft.

(2) The other aspect is purely physical. The last few weeks of writing involve long periods of intense work. Writing, rewriting, more tweaking, proofreading, making big corrections, then little ones, then just dithering between two equally well worded sentences. The closer we come to the finish line, the hard we push. During that time, an author gushes adrenalin. The "writer's high" is accompanied by an equally amazing surge of energy. When you ship the book, the adrenalin stops. The final period of hard work and fiendish energy leaves us exhausted, and then the adrenalin that gave us such strength vanishes on the way home from the Post Office. The combined droop makes an intelligent writer feel like a a soggy noodle, and a sad one, at that.

What's the remedy? It helps to know it's normal, and considering the above two factors, very logical. It's good to work on marketing the little gem you just worked so hard on and to begin developing plans for your next book (really!). But don't expect any of that to eradicate the Author Blues. After the first two or three sad weeks , life begins to look a little lighter each day, and eventually, depending on what other disasters befall you during that process, you'll regain your balance.

Be kind to you. Birthing a book is hard labor, and you deserve some gentle recovery time.

Happy writing ~

Linda