Salad Day I Suppose
By ice rivers
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When I look back on this day, I will feel pride.
I finished my book yesterday. Fill Fuller is the continuation of Full Filler. I've got two books under my belt now. I would say that pretty much qualifies me as a "writer" at least for today and including right now because as you can see I'm "writing".
In a certain way, my whole life has been leading up to this moment even a little bit more than everyone's entire life is leading up to the moment in which they are living. A day like this has only happened once before in my life, that day was so hard to believe that I had to do it again to convince myself that the whole thing was/is real.
I said I was gonna do it and must have meant what I said when I first said it because now it's done not only once but twice. Imagination leads to imagicnation which leads to imagicnaction which leads to a moment like this.
I'd been trying to deliver this baby for the last three months. Waking up every morning and heading back to work on an offspring that was happy where it was yet each day coming closer and closer to completion and a life outside.. I learned to love to go back and make changes. My designer kept allowing me to submit a new final copy. I submitted at least 5 and brought them all back for further development.
In late February, I decided I would finally release the creation on St. Patrick's Day. Yesterday was that day. We went to the Galway Hooker, our local Irish pub, and stayed for about an hour. The beer was cold and the people were friendly. The place was packed. The book was finished and published.
I was tired.
I came home and went upstairs. I slept for the entire afternoon. I had no energy. I felt no purpose.
I woke up late this morning as I couldn't figure out a reason to get outta bed. I had nuthin' to work on. The product had been delivered and was now out of my hands. I know that a lot of people have been anticipating this moment, the kind folks who encouraged me throughout the entire process. They'll be buying it soon and reading it soon after that. Today is the calm after the exhiliaration and before the criticism and dissatisfaction that will lead me back to work on yet another one which at this moment I can barely imagine.
I remember a story that Wayne Gretzky told after his young Edmonton Oilers team lost the Stanley Cup to the New York Islanders. Wayne passed the locker room of the Islanders and was surprised how subdued it was. The Islanders were veteran champions and had been through this before. In the moment before the champagne started flowing, they looked like exhausted, wounded warriors who were glad that they had completed the job but still had more work to do.
That's pretty much how I'm feeling today. The work is done. It's out there, it's not in here anymore. It belongs to anybody who wants it now.
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the work of creation is done.
the work of creation is done. Selling, now there's a job.
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I love the titles already.
I love the titles already. Selling, does that even happen anymore, unless it's a diet book? That's why we all have to go to work too. Your writing is always a curve ball, now you can limber up for bowling your next one or you could publish a best seller about actual salad.
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This is a very common experience
This is a very common experience there even is a name for it: Post Dissertation Depression. It is when some kind of really large work is done and finished. A big project done. Could be almost anything. A feeling of emptiness, looking back perhaps not quite happy.
Accomplished. Such a sense of finality and so much time at your hand now. The best way to deal with it is to immediately start on a new project. And yes you might be able to make a living from writing, but as from poetry alone you can't get rich I'm convinced of it it has been proven time and again.
Of course your main enemy in writing a dissertation or some such book is procrasination. Yes, sounds like it could be.
Keep well! Cheers! Tom
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Congratulations
Congratulations on finishng your second book, Ice:) What you have written is now etched in the marrow of everyone's collective memory. Rest and recover for a bit. Everything in life is a story. There is a whole world of stories waiting for you to discover and comment on. And if that means book three, then rock on! Start thinking of it now and the writing will come later.
JXM
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You can certainly call
You can certainly call yourself a witer, ice rivers. I'm guessing that - although making money on your work would be wonderul -- you'd be doing it whether money was a factor or not. YOu love what you do, and your good at. It's satisfying and frustratiing as well. Glad your book is out. I'll be looking for it. Cheers.
Rich
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