What lies on the Other Side?
Does this question conjure up creepy images of the afterlife? The shadowy realms that border graveyards? OK, ignore me, its my horror frame of mind at the moment as I contemplate a Brisbane ghost story.
What I really had in mind was probably something equally horrific - well at least for me. And that is what lies on the Other Side of my last work in progress.
I usually conceive the story before I start. I might fill in gaps as I go, and everything certainly comes alive, but by the time I am steaming toward the end I am picking up some appreciable pace. By the time I write to the end (I'm talking first draft here, not all the other thousand times I rewrite it) I am sometimes so pumped that I can hardly sit in the chair. I guess I'm a finisher - which probably explains the trouble I have with beginnings. Or starting something.
Once I've finished a project, I have a pretty massive creative crash. Going from that level of immersion into a new project is tough for me. I know this is the absolute opposite of many others, but facing the first, blank page of a new world is like sitting on the floor after harakiri contemplating my entrails in a state of mortal agony. OK. Might be getting a little dramatic. I guess you probably realise I am there right now. Related to this is my problem of holding onto things way longer than I really should.
Don't get me wrong, starts are exciting as well. Its fun being able to leap conceptually in any number of directions and give birth to something completely new.
So how do you face The Other Side? The period of completion after your creative project? Do you jump for joy, light up a cigarette and crack a bottle of champagne? Do you crash mentally and emotionally? Do you breath a sigh of relief and reach excitedly for the parchment?
What is the Other Side like for you?
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