I’m in a weird spot right now – I’ve once again finished a book, an epic fantasy monster of 140k words. I started writing it in spring 2020, the pandemic had just begun, the first lockdown had descended on us, everything was shit and I needed a hero. So I decided to write myself one. I abandoned the project some 80k into the story, because it had grown into something too complex for me to focus on with the constant pressure and, especially, with the lack of peace due to no alone time – homeschooling can really ruin your concentration. That was when I retreated to the safe and familiar ground that was Alice & the gang, resulting in the fifth installment of my Resident Witch series. I finally returned to my monster a few months ago, and somehow plowed through…
… and now I’m here, having sent the entire mess out to beta readers. It’s the weird spot where you’re not yet ready to start something new, you can’t yet edit because you’re waiting for the comments and criticism and all to float into your inbox. What with summer coming up, and holidays, I’ve told everybody to please not stress themselves, hey, I’ve been at it since 2020, it can wait a few more months, right? Right. It’s been something like 24 hours and I’m already like, why hasn’t anyone come back to me yet? Is it so bad they had to put it down? I’m obviously super self-confident.
Either way, it’s also the weird spot where you, just for a while, move away from writing completely. I don’t even have ideas at the moment, so I’m doing all those neglected things I’ve been pushing away while my hero needed to fight his fights, like gardening, or finally arranging doctor’s appointments for various family members, or meeting with actual, live people, stuff like that.
There’s still time for badly drawn cartoons though, so I made this. Enjoy.
Angelika Rust 