Anya Bast

Well, this is my personal cycle of anxiety, anyway. The creation of a novel brings with it a roller coaster of emotion.

I start research on a new novel. There is excitement! Geeky joy! The glomming of lots of new books to read in order to help me build my world! Yay! Yayayayayayayay!

During the plotting stage — more happy, happy, joy, joy! The creation of new characters? Bliss! Discovering their pasts and all the deep, dark secrets that drive them throughout the book? Wheee!

I start the novel and look forward to writing every day. I luuuuurve it with a passion that gets me up from my fluffy bed at six every morning to write before my tornado, er, daughter wakes up. There are occasional bouts of dark ohmygodthisSUCKSandeveryonewillhateit.

I finish the first draft and go into the editing stage, which is intensive for me. Happy, happy, yet far more frequent incidences of ohmygodthisSUCKSandeveryonewillhateit.

I complete all revisions (which take me almost as long as writing the first draft) and send it off to my editor. I’m satisfied with my story and the way I told it. It could be no other way, after all. *shrug* I feel I have done justice to my characters. Yayayayayayayayay!!! *drinks champagne with husband*

First round of edits from editor arrives. I realize that while I can change sentence structure and move paragraphs around, ect, I can’t make any major changes to the book. Eeek! Anxiety sets in. Lots of ohmygodthisSUCKSandeveryonewillhateit. Lots and lots of second guessing myself.

Final proofreading stage. Same dealio as edits, except I have talked myself into my zen place now, so I’m feeling better about the whole thing.

Book release. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Lots of joy! My book is out there and people are reading it. Ohmygod…my book is out there and people are reading it? Eeeeeeeeeeek! What if everyone hates it? What if it totally sucks? Ack! Blarg! Blargity blarg blarg blarg! *vomits in trashcan* And yet…my anxiety is also mixed with this euphoria born of having my story out there in print.

Gradually the anxiety fades back into peacefulness as I see that not everyone hates my books *wipes sweat from brow* Whew! I mean, I can’t expect to please everyone but most people seem to be enjoying it. And all is well. S’okay. Zen place is found once more.

And the cycle starts again.

Welcome to a peek inside my head. Scary, huh? 😉

This post brought to you by the first round of edits on Witch Heart.