I took some time off with the family last week for some rest and relaxation. We live in the Midwest, which meant that we had a long drive to Florida each way. With three small kids, there was plenty of time where someone fell asleep in the car which meant it was pretty quiet for a hours at a time (the other hours, not so much …). But it gave me a lot of time at the wheel to do nothing but sit and think.

Without writing anything down, I find it hard to actually work on a story like that. I need to clear out the clutter in my head as I go along. Otherwise, I get stuck in these thought loops where I just sort of revisit the same concept over and over again even when I’ve already decided what to do with it.

So instead of work on anything new, really, I spent a lot of that time getting excited for the next WIP.

As I’m not a working writer — well, I am, but you know what I mean — I always come to the same point with every book. Once it’s written, I can either start something new while working on the edits knowing it’s going to take twice as long to edit the old work or I can double down and try and get finished in half the time. I typically stick to the latter. I want that finished project and don’t like sitting around without something to pitch.

That said, since I couldn’t really work on anything in the car, I got to do a lot of time daydreaming about the next work, which to me is still pretty important even before I sit down and write it. You need to be excited about what you write. I mean, if you aren’t excited by the work, why would your reader be?

So I really did get to rest and relax. Refill the ole tank as it were. I’m giving myself maybe another week off from the last book before I dive back into the dreaded Draft 2, so I’m filling that time with research and word sketches of what my next book could be. It’s  starting to twinkle over there just out of the corner of my eye as it tries to catch my attention and be my next distraction.