Pumpkin Carving Lessons & My Two Week Wait

Happy Tuesday!  How was your Monday?  Anything exciting?

As I promised yesterday, here are the pictures from my kiddos carving their Halloween pumpkin on Sunday.  They did a great job, and all I did was lay out the design for them and set them to it.  I had a lot of fun watching them scoop it out, especially the 4 year old.  I made them wait until I could grab the camera, and  actually got the "Ewwww" picture that I wanted from her.  LOL.

Left: Scooping with a scooper.  Right: Ewww!

I think it turned out really good for a 12, 9, & 4 yr old cutting it all out. 

So today's Tuesday, and another "off" day for me.  I only have a few more days to enjoy the non-working days.  I always give myself two weeks between books, but it turns out being more of a hassle.  I do it in order to refresh myself; to clear my mind of the previous story in order to focus solely on the new one.  Two weeks is a good amount time (for me) no matter if the books are about two different groups of characters, or even the same characters but in a different setting and new problems.

However, I feel lost during those two weeks.  I have no characters to spend my time with.  No vampires to admire, or lust after.  No dangerously sexy men to thrust upon my heroines one last time.  No smokin' hot fantasy sexual encounters to direct and unfold...  Well, that may not be entirely true.  ;-)

But these two weeks make me feel like someone who is suddenly unemployed and don't know what to do with their time. 

So why do I commit myself to two weeks off, you may ask.  Don't go thinking that I've never tried jumping from one book straight into another one--I have!  It didn't work out well.  I couldn't get my new character to act the way they were suppose to.  They kept reverting back to the one(s) in the previous story.  No matter how much I tried.  The storylines would run together and things just wouldn't work out the way they were suppose to.

This is why I admire the authors who can work on multiple novels at once.  I have to focus solely on one project at a time.  I have to get it finished from beginning to end before I can take my two weeks off and jump into the next one.

Why not one week?  What about three? 

One week has been tried and it's not long enough.  Three weeks are too long and I start to lose that urgency I feel in starting the next one.  I've tried both.

So, even though the two week wait drives me crazy and leaves me feeling so anxious about jumping on the next one, it's the best way for me to transition from one story to the next.  I know this, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.  LOL.

Okay, now that I've shared a little insight into my writing insanity, I'll leave you with...

Have a fabulous Tuesday!  :-)