Time Off

I’ve been taking some time off from revisions. I love my WIP to bits, but I’m feeling…unmotivated.

I’ve been beating myself up about it, even though there’s no real schedule. Awesome Agent Jim would like to see it when I’m ready to share. I need to finish the first pass through and then do a second pass for world-building issues. If I really focused, I could probably have it finished in two weeks. I think I know what needs work, although some of the hows won’t be settled until I’m there.

I love this story. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written. So…why the reluctance? Do I need more time to mull things over? Am I waiting for my genius crit partner’s line notes on the second half?  Am I scared of finishing the revision and sending it off to my agent? 

Or am I just in a mood to be immersed in other people’s stories right now?

I tend to either write a lot OR read a lot. There’s only so many hours in a day. And I can only live in so many fictional worlds at once. (I’m not a read-six-books-at-once person, either. Totally monogamous.) In the past ten days, I’ve read five books. RESTORING HARMONY. COMMITTED. HUNGER GAMES. CATCHING FIRE. MOCKINGJAY.  I’ve been in a mood to lounge in front of the fan and read for hours before bed. Read lazily for a bit post-shower, while my hair’s wrapped in a towel in the morning. Decompress while reading at Starbucks at lunchtime. Read on the front porch after work, a hint of fall in the air. Today my new Sony Touch Reader arrived, and I promptly downloaded SHADOW HILLS and started reading it and didn’t stop until page 100 (boarding school! mysteries!).

Who knows, maybe I’ll suck up something I need for this story by osmosis. MOCKINGJAY was effing amazing. Wrenching. Don’t worry, no spoilers. But I’ve been wandering around in a fog all day, haunted, thinking of Katniss and Peeta and Finnick and Gale and Haymitch, etc. The reader-sponge part of my brain is totally still back in Panem.

What about you? Do you take time-outs to read? Do you feel guilty about it?