Where does your lap go when you stand up? Or: where does the writer go when the writing stops? For I am currently in the state of Limbo (population: hmm). The draft of my latest book (a sequel to The Cat Kin) is with agent and publisher. So it’s pointless me working on that until I get back their comments. And while I could try thinking ahead to the next possible book idea, I don’t have it in me at the moment. In other words, at the moment I’m not a writer.
Mind you, I’ve known far worse. When I finished The Cat Kin I (or my agent) was trying to secure a publishing deal for the best part of a year and a half. In all that time I never wrote a word of anything new. I had made a pact with myself that this was my last attempt at publication, and that if it didn’t succeed I would not waste any more time trying. Luckily, I will never know if I would have kept to it. It is hard to imagine a life in which I don’t try to think up ideas for books, and then try to write them. I would probably have to get addicted to Halo 3 or something as a substitute. Actually, that's a terrifyingly easy thing to imagine.
Meanwhile the state of limbo continues and my inner writer twiddles his thumbs. Limbo is also a good excuse, by the way, not to have to try and think up any new ideas. Sequels are one thing, but an entirely new idea is the proverbial needle in the golden haystack at the end of the rainbow linking
The name of that song is “Wasted Time”. How so very nearly appropriate.
