This past year, I’ve written three posts about the debut year. Peeking Inside a Debut Group, The Debut Timeline, and Launching and Marketing Your Book.

It has been a wonderful and enlightening year. Many things about the debut process surprised me, but nothing more than the aftereffects of the whole process. Well, really just one.

I mentioned in the post about launching and marketing your novel that the weeks leading up to the book launch were filled with interviews, podcasts, posts, signings, and a lot of planning. Not to mention the excitement building each day. I loved (and still do) the activity surrounding List of Ten, but after the launch, I was ready to jump back into my work-in-progress. It was time to focus my creativity on another story.

But life rarely goes as planned. I found my mind wasn’t cooperating. I couldn’t focus. Ideas wouldn’t come. And it wasn’t just for the current manuscript. I had difficulty writing blog posts, essays, and notes for new stories. It felt as if my brain had used every ounce of creativity it had. All of this at a time when I was in the process of changing careers to have more time for writing.  

Thankfully, my debut group came to the rescue. In our chats, other authors talked about the same issue. It wasn’t that our creativity had been used up, we were tired. Overworked. Exhausted.

Now that I’d identified the problem, I needed to find a solution. Logically, I knew my creativity would come back, and based on the discussions with other authors, it seemed it would take anywhere from four to six weeks after the book launch. The idea that I may not be as productive as I want, and need to be, for that long is very scary. And the non-logical part of me, of all of us, wondered what we would do if the muse never came back.

I pushed that thought away on a daily basis. Refused to accept it. Instead, I focused on being kind to myself and worked on my version of self-care. This is what it looked like for me:

• I went for walks
• I read
• I latched on to even the tiniest bits of creativity
• I waited

Three weeks after my book launch, I felt the urge to pick up my work-in-progress. Ideas tickled the back of my brain. Solutions for sticking points came to me. My writing flowed in a way it hadn’t in a very long time. All was right in the world of my young adult thriller. As much as it can be when there is a murder involved.

So what should you take away from this post?

• Creativity takes a vacation for many reasons – some good and some bad – but it always comes back. Remind yourself of the times you had too many ideas that demanded to be written immediately.
• Stress, even good stress, can be exhausting and disrupting.
• Use your self-care. Do what helps you relax.
• Talk to other writers. I can guarantee others have felt, or are feeling, the same emotions you are.

These tips can help with future books as well as other areas in our lives. There will always be stress. There will always be moments of exhaustion. And as long as we remember to be kind to ourselves, I believe we’ll be okay.