Taking A Month Off

I careered into the beginning of August with half my exhaust hanging off and the feeling that I'd eaten one too many peanut butter sandwiches.

It had been a busy few months - I'd released four books in quick succession (Little Book of Verse, Spring Fling, Summer Dreaming and Tales from the Seaside). I had been working on The Gaia Project, trying to hammer it into shape for my beta readers. As usual, I left the last section until the last minute and ended up writing 6000 or so words in two days - which just goes to show, it can be done!

I then merrily flung Project at my betas and announced I was taking a month off. I was in Beta! 

At first, I was very tired. Writing is a mentally exhausting endeavour. All the more so as you try to juggle family, friends, work, children, pets, housework - whatever else it is that fills up your plate. There's no such thing as a writer vacuum. Or if there is, why the hell has no-one invited me to it!

It was the beginning of the school holidays, my little boy's birthday, my birthday & a week away - all in very quick succession. I was existing in a state of near-overwhelmedness powered by biscuits, chocolate, tea and most importantly, cake.

It was never going to last. Whilst I trilled to the world - I'm in Beta - what was really happening was my circuits were being fried. You know, that feeling when you finally relax only to feel really ill and tired and bleurgh. Only in my case, it manifests as an anxiety attack. My anxiety attacks are awesome. No, really. I get so tired and so overwhelmed, I lose the ability to speak. It starts off with a stutter that gets more pronounced before I literally cannot force the words out. That's when I know I need to take a timeout. 

The plan had always been to not write in August because I felt that trying to do that whilst looking after two children full time would be too much. I realise that many, many people do that and more on a daily basis. And that's great. But I knew I wouldn't be able to. Hence the mad scramble to get to beta. I thought that if I gave my readers a month, I could leave the manuscript alone for a month and look at the story with fresh eyes in September.

Well, it's September folks and tomorrow I will be printing out a fresh copy of The Gaia Project to re-read, proof, edit, tinker and take on board the comments from my fabulous beta team readers. I'm going to give them a wee shout out because I really couldn't do this without them - Kevin, Claire, Donna, Hannah, Amy, Simon and Debbie - you're all superstars!

Claire Buss is a multi-genre writer and poet, completely addicted to cake. Find all her books on Amazon. Join the discussion in her Facebook group Buss's Book Stop.