So the Book's Done...Now What?

Good afternoon.

Yesterday I sent what I believe is the final draft of "Fresh Ice" to the formatting team at 52 Novels.  I love those folks!

The book took me about two years.  Three, if you count the year I spent farting around with a really bad concept for mildly bad characters.  But at least they had great names.  And, in the end, the names are pretty much the only thing that stuck.  Thank goodness I have my critique partner, Linda Schmalz, who told me in that first year that the book was terrible, and needed to be killed...immediately.

Kill it I did.  And thank goodness, again, for Linda,  and her dog.  We were on a walk one frosty winter evening and I confided in her that my characters were boring me..."If only,"  I said, "My heroine could be something interesting, like a figure skater."  And thusly, Izzy Marks was born, thanks to the conversation that followed.  Linda and I both love figure skating.

But that was a long time ago.  Since then I've worked, and wept, and lit candles, and drunk a fair share of pinot noir over ice, and gallons of coffee.  And now, the book is done, the cover art, thanks to my other wonderful critique partner Kelly Moran, is beautiful, and now...

now what?

We all get this huge sense of relief when a book is done.  But then that's followed by a vast emptiness and a little panic.  What is the next project?  Do I have another story in me?  Do I have characters...names, I need character names, where is my baby name book?

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us. My goal was to get Fresh Ice off my desk by the time NaNo rolled around because I wanted to devote the month of November to a new project.  And I will.  I have a really great start on something.  But it's new...there are blank pages, and screens to be filled.  I don't know the characters' back stories.

I'm not in love with the hero yet.

Yep, the book is done...now what?

Now we go forth and WRITE!