Finishing Blues

...Ever get to the end of a marathon/mammoth project, be it creative/reading/watching something, and just find yourself sitting numbly and staring into space?

The question of 'Right. What now?' ringing through your head?

So yeah, I finished my first NaNo. Ahead of time even, and now I find myself wondering... 'what now?'. Sure, I could edit. I could start a new writing project, or pick up an old one, but my creative energies are sapped for the moment. (It's also possibly due to the fact it's almost 2am on a Saturday night.)

Anyone else suffer from the anti-climax?


...This really is a stupid thing to feel. Why am I not happy I've completed my first NaNo? (I will feel better tomorrow, but for now? Bleh! Bleh I tell you. Bleh and meh. *sigh*.)

same here, to an extent, but i have my next couple of projects lined up already. working on this pair of young 16 year olds on a journey for a month and suddenly have to stop after a good ending, it feels sorta odd. i really only wanted to forum browse and clean up after getting to the end. but usually by the next day, i want to get into another project, but likely not due to nfl being on tomorrow.

I'm still going to edit what I already have, and finish it. The story of Arthur and Guenivere won't be finished at 50 thousand words. I am however aiming to finish it tonight; a few hundred words to go.

I definitely have the finishing blues. I'm most likely going to finish today or tomorrow, and I should feel accomplished/excited/something at all... and I just felt like I didn't accomplish much. At best, I feel like I have a heap of garbage to go back and revise now.

I feel sad that this is over....

but I'm definitely not done. I've got at least 90K to hammer into this thing, and as crappy as it is, I admire its pluck enough to try to make it publishable.

Maureen Johnson sums it up perfectly at the start of her vlog "Dare to Suck" (0:13 - 0:29). Although the whole thing is pretty damn awesome. But just that little bit is exactly how I feel every December 1st. Without fail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyhv80HDSj4

I never want to edit straight away. I want to take a step back and then come back to it. But I always feel at a total loss without this big thing over my head. You know that feeling when you leave the house to go on holiday and you swear you've forgotten something but can't place your finger on what? That's how I feel after NaNo.

I feel this way a little, but I set out with a personal goal of completing a novel length project (~100k) when I'm all said and done, so I am still going. I worked hard to make 50k be right smack dab in the middle of my story and I left it on an exciting note (I actually created said exciting part when I was looking at my last 1500 words going wtf do I do to get to 50k tonight?).

What feels strange to me is the lack of pressure. Do I want to get to 45k by Wednesday so I can have the long weekend off? Nope. Even though I was blessed with being able to write at work and thus completing personal quotas on Fridays and not working on my novel again until Monday, it feels strange to be at work with an hour left of my work day and not be scrambling to meet some quota in my head. Hopefully I'll keep it up and in a few months have a novel length piece I'm ready to edit and love even more.

And here I was thinking that I was the only person who felt this way :P
I've put off finishing my novel for a few days now simply because of this fact. It's odd because I know it will feel amazing to finally type that last sentence, but at the same time I don't want it to be over. I do plan on spending the next few months editing and re-writing this project, but it just isn't the same as sitting down every night and trying to hammer out a chapter. It's good to hear other Nimos feel the same!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way either.

Maybe I'll set myself 50k words to do in say, April or something. Give myself some time to let the creative juices recharge and work on other stuff in the meantime.

I've got "finishing NaNoWriMo blues" but it's more because I felt my novel falling apart since mid-November. Now I have no idea where it's going or who these characters are, so I think I need to go back and rework quite a few things. I tried to push through, hoping I'd figure it all out. I may just redo the whole thing from scratch. Next year I'll definitely do more planning work in October! :D