I’ve never read about this authorial phenomenon, but it seems to have happened to me, over the course of the past few weeks and hours.
After the first beta-readers signalled that yes, there was a story, that they reckoned the novel of Prequel was actually alive and well, I was delighted. Sure.
But thereafter, by necessity of course, I delved into it ad nauseum (there’s the telling phrase), trying to resolve all the editing/proofreading issues, and I’ve felt that I’ve been falling out of love with the effort.
How can an author promote their work if they’re not pleased with it? As the caveats piled up, I began to despair. This effort is never good enough, my mind unravelled, to present to a reading public; surely it’s all dross. I have read about this part of an author’s conundrum, call it post-creative tristesse, or the Slough of Despond, but by whatever name, I know it happens, a lot, and now at the point of delivery, it was happening to me.
But I persevered with the promotions efforts, as scheduled, and tried not to listen to my recriminations with myself. Meanwhile, I’ve been proofreading the manuscript over and over, and on this iteration, just this afternoon, as I arrived at the dénouement, as the pieces of the narrative configured themselves into a resolution before my unbelieving eyes, suddenly, unexpectedly, I realised that I was in love with the novel again. It was working again, for me, its creator. Whew! That’s a relief!
Perhaps inevitably, I’m easily pleased, but that doesn’t take the joy away, not now, now that the novel is nearly ready to present.
Biome NE47 