Wandering Aimlessly

I'm in the "what the heck do I do now" phase these days. A week ago I sent in my edits for A PALETTE FOR MURDER. Those edits consumed my life for over a month. Even when I wasn't actively writing, my brain was always focused on the story I was telling and the changes that needed to be made.

I always get this way after a big deadline. Doesn't matter if it's writing, programming or planning a conference. I have a long list of things I intend to do after I finish, but when the deadline passes I have a hard time focusing on actually doing any of them for a while.

Okay, I'm not sitting around doing nothing. I started a painting project, jotted down notes on the next book, read several of the books on my TBR pile, started cleaning the house. But I feel like I should be getting more done. I have all this time, why aren't I using it more effectively?

Some people go from one writing project to another without needing a break. I’m not one of those. And it’s not like this writing project is completely done, anyway. At the end of July I’ll be starting the final round of edits on PALETTE.

I’ll give myself a couple more aimless days, then I’ll get to work on writing back of the book copy, understanding Facebook ads and other things.

What do you all do when you get to the end of a big deadline? Do you go straight into the next project or do you wander aimlessly like I do for a few days?