Post-Partum Depression

While I'm not completely done, done, done with my Mason Dixon series, at this very moment book two has been revised according to my editor's excellent suggestions and emailed back to her, awaiting her approval or request for more changes, and book three is in the hands of my writing group; two of them have given me their comments, but I don't want to leap into revisions until I hear from the rest, for fear of inefficiency. Why work hard to revise scene x, if I may just end up eliminating scene x? As my erstwhile writing teacher Dennis Foley said, why spend a lot of time wallpapering a wall that is going to come down? Or that may well come down?

So as of this very moment, I have no writing-related task hanging over my head. I do have a novel due next spring, but it isn't hanging over my head right now.

Alas, what IS hanging over my head right now is all the little work-related tasks that I postponed to make my full-court press on writing the series, as well as all the work-related tasks generated by the new semester: preparing classes, grading papers, reading grad student work, meeting with my freshmen to help them work on their first paper, writing recommendation letters for doctoral students heading out on the job market.

It's been less than a week since I sent off Mason Dixon II to my editor and Mason Dixon III to my writing group, and already I miss writing desperately. While there is much about my job that is exhilarating and satisfying - I do love being in the classroom, I do love meeting with students, I do love being a mentor to students, I do love being part of the rich and stimulating world of the university - there is nothing in this world I love as much as I love putting words down on paper.

I wish I had ten contracts, with ten impending impossible deadlines! I really do.