And the beat goes on

by: Joelle Charbonneau

Get out the noise makers and the pop the cork on the champagne.  Yesterday, I finished writing Skating Under The Wire.  In an ideal world, I would have completed writing the manuscript weeks ago.  But life is never ideal and a combination of working on revisions for other books, family issues and publicity stuff for the release of Skating On the Edge slowed me down.

Now I can relax, right?  Well…

Being an author is a job like any other.  Just because one assignment is complete doesn’t mean the job is over.  Today I start rereading the manuscript and revising the pages so I can turn it in over to the world’s best agent for her opinion.  While she is reading, I will work on revisions for Independent Study (The Testing trilogy book 2).  As soon as those revisions are done, I am told revisions for End Me A Tenor should arrive.  When I am done with those, I will open up a blank page and begin writing Graduation Day.

When I was a reader, I thought being an author was a dream job.  You write when inspiration hits, celebrate big sales and movie deals and have lots of time off in between books.  Ha!  What I have learned is you never get your work done if you wait for inspiration.  Instead of celebrating finishing a manuscript with a vacation or several weeks off, a writer is often back at the keyboard the next day working to get that manuscript revised.  And when one story ends, another begins.

There are days that I wish I had more time to rest in between books.  Some days I feel tired and don’t want to analyze every word choice or pick apart the sentence structure.  But I do it because it is my job.  And WOW, am I lucky to get to do this for a living.