The Morning After
By Brunonia Barry | April 30, 2019 |
Photo by Antonio Guillem
Whether you’ve been working on your WIP for one year or ten, there comes a day when you know it’s ready to submit. Whether it’s fifty pages and an outline or the full manuscript, today’s the day. You’ve done your work. It’s time to let go.
You go over your cover letter again and again, reviewing each sentence, obsessing and rewriting until you can’t put it off any longer. You take a deep breath. You hit send.
After the initial feeling of euphoria fades, you glance up at the wall, at the framed sign you pinned there months ago with some of the best writing advice you’ve received: Stay in the chair. You stand up, noticing the stiffness in your legs, the lower back ache you’ve been ignoring for the last few months. Step by step, you slowly move away from your writing nook, forcing yourself not to look back.
And then you celebrate the best way you know how. Maybe with a glass of champagne or a nice lunch at that restaurant you’ve been longing to try. A stroll through the park, a massage, perhaps a visit with an old friend, one who’ll forgive your long absence.
For the first time in months, you sleep through the night: no characters whispering in your ears, no jolting awake with that great idea that just can’t wait.
And then, inevitably, it arrives: The Morning After.
You wake up early and happily realize that you have nothing on your agenda, nothing but the life you guiltily put aside for far too long. It’s time to get back to it. You climb out of bed with a bit more vigor than you’ve had in these final days of rewriting. You stand there wondering what to do first.
You’ve faced The Morning After at least once before. You know enough to avoid the piles of laundry that have collected on the bedroom floor, the sweats or yoga pants or pajamas you’ve been living in for the last few weeks. You’ve learned to avoid mirrors.
At this point, if you’re smart, you’ve already considered that short vacation, ignoring housework, bills, yard-work, the half-painted den. You can’t wait to reward your hard work with a change of venue, but it doesn’t work out that way. Since you couldn’t gauge exactly when you’d be finished, and your preferred travel companions have real world schedules, they can’t just drop everything the day you’re finally ready. Even your writer friends, the ones who would gladly celebrate with you, are busy wrestling with their own WIPs. The vacation will have to wait.
With nothing pressing, and against your better judgement, you wander into your writing nook, sit down at the computer, and check your emails. Maybe someone is already reading. Maybe your manuscript was so compelling that the minute they received it, they put everything aside and stayed up all night, unable to stop turning pages until they finished that final brilliant chapter.
Instead, there’s not even an acknowledgement of receipt. You realize you should have asked for one. You check the clock. It’s still early. Even so, you start to obsess: What if they didn’t get it? What if they couldn’t open the file? You decide you should send a follow up email. You really must.
Since you’ve been through The Morning After before, you take a deep breath, recognizing the symptoms of impending disease. The accompanying dizziness. The slight headache… The shouldas have begun to set in.
The word should echoes inside your head. A wave of nausea washes over you. This is not your first case. You’ve had the shouldas before. Today, they go something like this:
You shoulda set the manuscript on a more remote island.
You never shoulda made the protagonist a neuroscientist as well as a Lyric Soprano opera singer and MMA champion. It’s just too much.
You shoulda shared that revised first chapter with your writing group.
Or, you never shoulda shared that revised first chapter with your writing group. You feel as though you’ve been hit by a truck. You ache all over.
You push yourself away from your desk. You lie down for a while. You drink a lot of water.
As morning gives way to afternoon, you start to feel a little better. You wander around the house for a while. Weather permitting, you take a long walk then book a yoga class you’ve been meaning to attend. You actually go.
Energized, you take in a movie. Afterwards, you stop by Home Depot and try to match the paint to finish that den you started about the same time you had the initial idea for your manuscript. You’re told that shade was discontinued two years ago.
You binge watch Peaky Blinders, falling asleep on the couch to the strains of Red Right Hand, the lingering dream image of Small Heath giving way to a new image, one that will somehow find its way into your next WIP.
You awaken to the i-Phone ping of an incoming text, the requested reply to that follow up email you just couldn’t keep from sending: “Manuscript received.”
You sigh, remembering the long process ahead, and knowing that the real wait is just beginning.
Have you ever experienced the morning after? What was it like for you?
Brunonia Barry is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Lace Reader, The Map of True Places, and The Fifth Petal, chosen #1 of Strand Magazine’s Top 25 Books of 2017. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages and has been an Amazon Best of the Month and a People Magazine Pick. Barry was the first American author to win the International Women’s Fiction Festival’s Baccante Award and was a past recipient of Ragdale Artists’ Colony’s Strnad Invitational Fellowship as well as the winner of New England Book Festival’s award for Best Fiction. Her reviews and articles on writing have appeared in The London Times, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post. Brunonia served as chairperson of the Salem Athenaeum’s Writers’ Committee, as Executive Director of the Salem Literary Festival, and as a member of Grub Street’s Development Committee. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts with her husband, Gary Ward, and their dog, Angel.
The thing that always amazes me after finishing even a draft (let alone for the final time) is how quickly it all just… goes. Once I decide I’m “done” for now, whoosh!–right out of my head.
I think it’s because I’m a writer who holds the whole damn book in his head (not wisely, and mostly because of how disorganized I am). And I suppose it’s like gathering something in your arms–say, campfire wood. You grab piece after piece, and because you know you’re so far from done, you think, “This is fine.” Until you throw it all down back at the fire circle. Then your muscles are, like, “About time, dummy. Don’t even think about lifting or gathering anything for a while.”
Wishing you the very best, Brunonia! In letting go of the outcome and enjoying the journey, first and foremost. Then for the work you’ve submitted.
I love the image of gathering campfire wood, Vaughn. Not sure I’m as lucky at throwing it all down at the fire circle, though. Holding the very heavy pieces all it once, that’s something I understand well. Another reason for the sore back.
I’ve had a few morning afters. I’m finding it important in this pursuit to celebrate those accomplishments, no matter how small. In this business there is little positive feedback. Whether it’s grinding out a page on a day you’d rather pick up dog doo than sit at the computer, or finishing edits on an entire manuscript, pat yourself on the back.
You’re so right, Deb. It’s important to celebrate each of these accomplishments. There are so many things we’d rather do that sit at our computers. That’s one of the reasons this group is so helpful. Other writers understand the process.
Your post hit so many buttons for me, Brunonia. I’m approaching query time and already fantasizing about being out of my PJ’s before noon. And yoga. A whole class! And my house? I know intimately the mini morning-after of sending pages off to a book coach, then checking email every two nanoseconds in search of feedback. It’s exhausting and counterproductive, so we’ll see how I do going forward. The big gift of your post for me is that the obsessing is normal, but also optional (more or less). I’m a fangirl of yours, by the way!
Thank you, Susan. It’s good to find out I’m not alone. Love your comment “obsessing is normal, but also optional (more or less).” That sums things up beautifully.
I used to feel that way after major projects: bored and anxious, but too exhausted to start something new quite yet. I called it the “Between Book Blues.”
I don’t have “mornings after” anymore, and I think it’s because I’ve developed hobbies other than writing. Now I finish a novel, celebrate for a bit, and then occupy myself happily with sewing coats and arranging flute/piano compositions.
Writer culture tends to encourage workaholism. We must think about writing sixteen hours a day and dream about it for the remaining eight. Full-time jobs, healthy marriages, and clean houses are for hacks. Being an artist is such a miserable fate, but if we don’t live, breathe, and eat writing we’ll just die!
That mindset isn’t healthy or productive. If we were more consistent about going to those yoga classes instead of typing 10,000 words a day, I think we’d all see the quality of our lives and our works improve.
I think you’re right, T.K.. It’s not healthy. I like the term “Between Book Blues.” I tend to take long breaks between books, because, once a story lets me in, I stay there. When I’m on a break, I can’t image ever writing another book, but then a story catches me and I’m off again. Luckily, my husband writes music, and though his pieces are shorter than mine, his process is similar. We’re both working on balance, but it takes a lot of effort.
I’m just happy to get rid of the bloody thing.
Well put, David.
The manuscript is away in somebody’s inbox. That should be it. Done. Dust hands. Tidy up, call friends and get working on the next one. That, anyway, is how it should feel. But it doesn’t always.
When I feel anxious for a reply, what it means is that my manuscript is not truly done. If it was the best of all possible manuscripts, I would not feel uneasy. I would feel confident, satisfied, job well done.
I used to believe that checking my e-mail every half hour reflected nothing more than a need for validation, a hope that my story is having an impact.
Nope. It is actually the nagging feeling–certainty, really–that I rushed. What I’m waiting for is for someone to tell me what I already know: There’s work to do on that puppy.
The day after should not feel like a hangover: exhaustion, headache, a feeling of regret for dimly remembered behavior the night before. It should feel like a New Day: bright sunshine, birds singing, a morning brimming with possibilities.
Hurrah or hangover, my body knows. I try to listen. The way to avoid the morning after is to do my utmost on the day before.
That’s great advice, Benjamin. For me, there’s always more to do until my editor finally pulls the manuscript out of my hands. Even after publication, if I happen to reread any of it, I often wish I could rewrite.
You captured it so beautifully, Brunonia.
I strategize to avoid ‘the morning after’–including working on more than one project at a time. Regardless, the doubts follow each time I submit. But it is helpful to have a new project in which to pour all my nervous energy.
That’s great advice, Benjamin. For me, there’s always more to do until my editor finally pulls the manuscript out of my hands. Even after publication, if I happen to reread any of it, I often wish I could rewrite.
Leanne, I love the idea of having another project. Thank you. I’m going to try that.
Does it ever go away? This feeling that you’ve sent your baby out into the world with a milk stain on his/her onesie and now the whole world knows what a bad mother you are. Having more than one child doesn’t help — they’re all a bit messy. Sometimes I think I should give up writing and take up bowling.
Messy is a good way to put it, Heidi. I think the whole writing process is messy and should be if you want to go deep. But it’s also private. When you finally let the world see that depth, it’s frightening. And you’re right; having more than one child doesn’t help. Bowling…now that’s a thought. Let’s start a league.
All the should’ves and could’ves run through my head!
I do my best to distract myself with tv binge watching, cleaning, or doing something about my massive to-read pile. It distracts me for a while — until a new writing idea pops into my head. Or a way the MS I just sent off could have been improved…
Morgan, I’m in the tv binge watching stage right now, haven’t yet started cleaning. Distractions are the key. Love the idea of a new MS.
You’ve captured that achy, restless feeling right down to the sweats, Brunonia. It’s a potent cocktail of euphoria, exhaustion, pride, anticipation, and dread all poured into a chilled glass made of anticlimax.
Why can’t I wait to drink it down again?