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I usually do this Little Lost Lamb thing when a book is done. I wander from room to room at a loss. I don’t know what to do with myself. I wander into Jon’s office and bother him, then wander out to other parts of the house and bother everyone a little. I’m like this gloomy little cloud of, “What do I do now?” I’ve been working so long and so hard on a book and suddenly it’s done it’s as if my brain and body can’t figure out how to do anything else. I have to decompress and go through this near depression for a couple of days. One of the ways I used to avoid it was to have another book that I could fall into immediately. It was like those people who rebound from one romance to another because they don’t want to be out of love. But for the very first time ever I sent a book off to New York and felt nothing but relief. It’s done! Yay! The relief bordered on hysteria I was so glad not to be trapped in my office until 2 to 3 AM for another night. But I’ve had bad deadlines before, I figured I had a day of relief and then I’d do my usual Little Lost Lamb routine.

Friday came and I was still happy to be done. I got a true crime book that I’d been trying to read in pieces for weeks and just started really reading it. Jon and I took a two hour nap, which we never do, so that I could be fresh for an on-line interview I did for Bitten by Books. Got up, did the live chat which was very confusing. Website kicked me off twice. I thought I’m just tired. I was tired. I went to my office to get something, and I was filled with an emotion bordering on repugnance at entering my lovely office. That let me know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was not ready to go back to work. I didn’t have to, and I wasn’t going to, but usually I feel guilty about it. That puritanical work ethic cracking the whip and driving me to either work or feel bad about not working. But that whip had cracked a few too many times over my back in the last few weeks. It just didn’t have the sting that it normally does. I had earned this rest by any criteria imaginable. I had driven myself to a point where not working was a blessed relief.

Saturday Jon and I spent mostly on the couch cuddling. Him fidgeting on his laptop. Me continuing to read the true crime book I’d started. He’d share funny or interesting things on the computer and I’d read out interesting, amusing, or just odd things from the book. We started catching up on the three to four weeks of Tivo shows that we hadn’t watched. NICIS, NICIS L. A., Leverage, CSI, Dirty Jobs, Burn Notice, Psych, and on DVD Criminal Minds. We are now downloading the new season of Criminal Minds. We didn’t watch all that on Saturday, but some, and some today which is Sunday. We still have hours of the shows left to view. But Saturday we mostly reading both book and electronically. I answered a few emails, but made the mistake of opening a business related email and immediately closed it. I wasn’t ready to make any decisions, because my overwhelming feelings were all negative. If anyone pressed for an answer yesterday it would be, no. Almost no matter what the question happened to be. I was just so done. I needed a weekend completely off.

It was the laziest, most non-work day I’d had in months, maybe years. Jon and I are debating that one. But either way I needed it, and so did Jon. We needed not to be working, not to have me working, and to remind ourselves how much we enjoy each other’s company. As a couple, especially with children, sometimes you forget what you have in common other than family. Trinity, our daughter, was with her father this weekend, so it was just us. For Jon and me it’s not just family stuff, but also the work since he works with me and for me , so that sometimes we need to be reminded that we were friends long before we were anything more. This weekend has reminded us of that. I feel like I’ve been able to let out a breath I’ve been holding for about a year. Some tension has slipped away that I hadn’t known I was holding so very tightly.

I have not done the Little Lost Lamb thing, not once. I don’t feel bereft of the book. I feel free of it. I have needed a weekend where we were totally free of work. But as evening drew near this Sunday I started to get restless. I’m not bemoaning the book not being here, at all, but I am beginning to feel that itchy, I need-to-do-something feeling. Tomorrow Carri and I will hit the gym and that will help. I’ll mediate tomorrow and that will help. But maybe one of the reasons I haven’t felt at a loss for something to do is the fact that I know starting Monday I’m back at it. For the first time ever I sent a book with two scenes not complete. I outlined what happened, did the beginning and end of the scenes, and just skipped them, because that would have been two extra days that my deadline didn’t have. I talked it over with my editor ahead of time, and she was fine with it. One scene was too emotionally charged and I was too drained to do it well. The other scene was me just being too tired to do it justice. Monday I get to write one of those scenes. Tuesday I get to write the other. Sometime next week or the week after copy-edits will be here and I will have to go over them line by line. Maybe one of the reasons I didn’t feel like a lamb lost in the hills was I knew the wolf was coming back for another bite. So tomorrow we begin the final run of Bullet. Finished isn’t finished until the book has come back from New York for copy-edits and then page proofs. So when I get to type the words, The End, on the final page it’s not really the end for me as a writer. My job only really ends when you hold the book in your hands and there’s no way for me to polish or change another word. In June when you can actually read Bullet for yourselves then it will truly be done.