The manuscript you've been working on for THREE YEARS!!! is finally finished. Edits done, final read-through complete, slashed-and-burned, trimmed-and-tightened, polished-polished-polished, and finally, the publication master is sitting on your desk. Well, the electronic version, anyway, is sitting on your hard drive, in your folder or your virtual filing cabinet, whatever. Anyway, it's ready to go to press and now you can relax.
Except for that nagging feeling you've forgotten something. What was it? Oh, yeah, that "other project"; you know, the one you kicked to the side of the road when you decided to put all your energy into finishing
THE MANUSCRIPT so it would be complete. Well... you did it. Now what?
OK, let's take a step back to the last three words in the first paragraph; you can relax. That's right, relax. Take a few days off.
No, seriously, RELAX!
It's really OK to do this, because you've basically just given birth to your creation; with labor lasting 3 years.
So go do a few things you've been putting off for the last six months. Like a movie, or some shopping (wouldn't a new laptop be a nice present to yourself?), or watching a TV show or two... or three... Go out to dinner with friends, have a cookout, read a good book or two. Trust me, soon enough you'll get that old familiar itch to start hammering away at the keyboard once again, but do yourself a real favor while you have the chance.
Relax.
Let your mind play for a while and bask in the sunlight (figuratively not literally; it's still March) and take a deep breath and know you've done the job well. And at some point down the line, probably within a week, you'll know when it's time to go back to work, pick that poor little project up out of the dirt, dust it off, buy it a new pair of shoes, and set it back on the pedestal lately abandoned by your
MANUSCRIPT. But until that day comes in the not-too-distant future... relax. You did good.
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