So, like Katherine, I had no idea how timely this week’s topic was going to be.

Last Friday was a really poopy day (and not just as that statement relates to TNB). The kind of day that caused me to send my wife a text, “I think I’m going to quit.” A day that made me email with Muses, “I might take a hiatus from writing. Maybe a year. Get my brain back on straight.”

I won’t get into specifics, though I’m sure you’re dying to know – but it’s still too raw for me to openly discuss “the issue” with the blogoshphere. But it’s sufficient to say the low that I hit was deep, dark, and rocky.

After letting the world know I was quitting the game, my phone went nuts with emails pouring in from the Muses and a call from my wife. They all told me to just breathe – that the world wasn’t over – that I should hold off smashing my laptop (and my dreams) until I was less emotional.

The encouragement pulled my face from the rock bottom, beaten and bloody, but I was still way, way down there. That afternoon, I took a long lunch and hike with my family. We talked and talked about “the issue.” We problem solved. We dissected. We used our collective analytical minds. All of that made me feel better, too – yet the depths were murky.

I started reading one of my all time favorite books, LORD OF THE FLIES, and while it reminded me of the power of fiction, I was still in the dumps. I pet the dogs. I ate a Specialties chocolate chip cookie. I watched MODERN FAMILY (and even laughed). I cuddled with TNB (which did wipe away the pain, though it’d rush back the moment the lil’tyke was out of my arms).

All weekend, I tried everything in my toolbox to get out of the slump. (I know, I know, it takes time, etc. But for those that know me, a three day wallow is one for the record books).

Then, while on a mope-laden walk with the dogs on Sunday, I had the smallest inkling of a new idea. Something raw and terrifying and unformed. But there was something in it. A story. And, despite the hostile rockiness of my mind, it took root. By the end of the walk, it spread and leafed and was shooting my mood upwards like Jack’s beanstalk.

It wasn’t that I was looking for The Slutty Next Novel or necessarily needed one. What I needed was some imaginary world to construct. Scenes to imagine. Characters to interact with. Concepts to chew on. Even if this new idea is a bad one…another novel for the drawer…or one that never makes it to the page…I’m cool with that. See, I needed a story to tell, if only to myself.

By Monday morning, I emailed the Muses: “Hiatus…Schmi-atus.” Today, I’m still miles below the golden clouds in the sky. I’m still handling “the issue,” though from a much higher place.

So what does my post say about how I deal with the lows of writing? That friends and spouses and chocolate chip cookies won’t fix it?

They help an unspeakable amount and I’d still be much worse off if it weren’t for their love, support, and/or chocolaty goodness. But, the honest answer is No, they can’t fix the lows of writing. At least not for me.

In the end, the art of storytelling is the true cure. It’s why I’m here. It’s what I love. Sometimes the other parts of this business are great. Sometimes, they suck. But the act of creation, when it happens, is....

…well, it’s sacred.

And that is what gets me high.

I’ve been an aspiring writer for about seven years longer than I’ve been a published writer. It’s easy for me to remember the highs and the lows from the Before days, when I was writing seriously and dreaming furiously.

At the start of 2009, I set clear goals for my writing. I was going to finish my manuscript. I was going to start querying. And, because I thought it was too far-reaching a goal to actually land an agent, I hoped to make “significant, measurable progress,” on the agent front. (Why yes, I did just quote myself, but to be fair, it was me from three years ago.)

Those were my big milestones. Day to day what I remember was the wanting feeling. That achey, striving feeling. Like, if I could just check this off (agent/editor/book deal), then I’ll have made it. I’ll have proven myself as a writer. All of this effort, and all of this passion will be justified. I won’t have wasted my time.

I remember night after night just staring at my bedroom ceiling in the dark and thinking about it. Any little thing would lift me up: praise from a fellow writer. A good day at the computer. Any small thing could get me down, too. That's what happens, I think, when you want something that badly. The stakes are high and you're easily thrown. It's what we learn as writers, right? Give your character a strong goal, and put setbacks and obstacles in their way? Life was doing that for me.

I also remember day after day of working on a manuscript in a perfect, protected bubble. At the time, before I found a strong writing community, I felt so alone. My family supported me, but most people didn't understand why I was so dedicated to something that had no guarantees. Something that kept me sequestered for hours on end. In those days, I wondered if anyone would ever read the words I set down. I felt like Sisyphus, pushing his boulder up the eternal mountain.

Now that I’ve crossed the published author threshold, I look back at the highs and lows from Before, and see how my journey has changed. I wish I could tell you that I feel like I’ve proven myself. I can’t. The wanting, striving feeling is still with me. While I feel very proud of what I’ve accomplished, the hunger to grow, to challenge myself, to leave a mark as a writer is still with me. I don’t know if that will ever go away--and I’m not sure I want it to. It’s the fire in the belly that makes me work hard. It's what makes me push the boulder up the mountain.

(One thing I will say about After is that my goals are, for the most part, turning inward. It’s less about what I want the marketplace and reviewers to tell me, and more about what ends up on the page. I would really love to get to the point where I’m creating my own definition of success. I would like to define what's at the top of the mountain. I think I’m getting closer. I like this goal better than the ones I had in 2009, so there is that.)

As far as the sacredness of the work from Before, the secret, protected bubble of your own ideas, that safe space… Man, I wish I’d appreciated it then. Hind sight is a funny thing. But I’ll tell you what: I’ve created it again. I have a safe space to work as a writer again, even if it’s for projects that will never see the light of day.

Whoa. Hold up. This started out as a blog about writing highs and lows, and somewhere I veered off road and began writing about the difference between pre-published and published me. (This blog also became a bit of a stream-of-consciousness blog.)(Sorry about that.)

I’m going to just cut to the chase and tell you that the highs and lows are present in both camps, Before and After. Before, the things that sucked were feeling like I could never get there, feeling isolated, and wanting wanting wanting. After, I still want to get somewhere that I’m not, I wish for that safe place I’ve had to sacrifice (see: isolated)(also see: No deadlines) and I still want want want.

The moral of the story is that there is always a boulder to roll up a mountain. The moral of the story is that writing is like life. Writing is life. You strive every day. Some days you’re up. Some days you’re down. But every second is meaningful. And what the heck else would you be doing with your time?

Writers write. It's what we do.

Now get off your bum and get to work. Your characters are waiting for you.

We blog a lot here about our process and things that have worked or not worked for us as we travel along this journey, and as you can tell from reading our different perspectives, there are many ways to write a book, and what works for one person may not work for someone else.  I get that. But what never occurred to me is that there is more than one way for me to write a book.

I guess I thought that once you wrote a book, at least once you wrote a book that was published, then you'd know how to write a book, and the next one would be easier.  Like there's some secret formula that you discover that you can use over and over.  

There's not.

Cue the rage.

You mean the second book is just as hard to write as the first?  HARDER?

Okay, but the third one, by that one, I'll know what I'm doing right?  I'll have learned the SECRET to writing a novel.

Nope.  Not even close.

There is no secret formula for writing a book.  There are tools we can learn to use, structures that help us shape the plot, story elements we can incorporate, but every story has it's own journey from inception to ever after.  And like every journey, a story has it's own obstacles and conflict before we get to the eventual resolution.  Some obstacles are easier to overcome than others, but I am increasingly certain that it's those obstacles that make the journey worthwhile.

Let's be honest. None of us want to write a formulaic book.  None of us want to write the same story over and over again. And as much as I'd love for a perfect first draft to magically spring from my fingertips (C'mon Bret, surely you've developed a product for that by now), it's the time, pain and bloodletting involved in the writing process that make the final product so satisfying.

For every day where opening the document feels like an insurmountable task, there is another where I can't get the characters out of my head.  For every day that it takes me six hours to scrape together 600 words, there is a day where a scene appears on the page out of nowhere that is so perfect and surprising that it makes me fall in love with the story all over again.  For every moment that I hate writing, there are a hundred more where I wonder how I ever survived without it. 

Writing is hard.  It doesn't get easier.  But maybe that's just art's way of making sure we don't take it for granted.  Maybe it's art's way of telling us that we are more than the sum of our parts.

And we are.  We are writers. 

I love our brainstorming sessions for choosing blog themes.  One, we conducted on a drive up into Rocky Mountain National Park while we were on a retreat together.  Bret sat in the back with his iPad and jotted down every single idea, worked them up into a list, and off we went.  The next one, we did sometime in January, I think, and it was all through e-mail, taking suggestions from readers, throwing out ideas we wanted to work with.  And again, Bret worked it all up into a list that relates to holidays, book launches, and personal preference.

But there was no way he could have known that this week's theme would follow a writing low for me that rivaled one I had last year, and wrote about in my post called "The Horror."

I had hoped never again to face something so traumatic.  It felt like...depression.  But one through which I managed everyday functions - getting out of bed, bathing, getting the kids to school.  I just couldn't write.

I had hoped that last year's event was a symptom of Book 2 - of the dreaded Sophomore slump.  But I'm struggling to find my way with Book 3.

So I did what I do best.  I shut down.  Stopped writing.  And cried.  I didn't even write a blog post one week, and Bret - my hero, who should really wear a cape - cobbled something together.  I couldn't even respond to comments.

For me, that is a writing low.

So what happened?  I  can hear your pulse race.  See you leaning forward, toward the screen.  What do I do if this happens to me?

Honestly?  I'm not entirely sure.  I'm not at rock bottom, but I'm still in a low.  I'm still struggling to squeeze out three hundred words in a three-hour time period.  I don't know where this book is going.  I'm barely aware of what it's about.   It's hard.

I think about what Libba Bray said in her awesome post, "The Ever-Popular I Suck Playlist" last year.  She said that when this happens to her, it means something is about to break through.  I don't think I've written enough books to believe that entirely yet, but it gives me hope.  Last year's event just went into the "I hope this never happens again" file.  Not in the "this is what I need to do when this happens" file.

I did learn one of writing's amazing lessons through this experience, though.

I can absolutely, 100% trust my friends.

They give me the hard truths, like Bret, who said, "This happened last year, too.  Maybe this is just part of your process." And this year, I will learn from that, so I'm better prepared if and when it happens again.

They give me encouragement, like V, who said, "It's a slump.  It won't last forever.  Maybe write something completely different." And Donna, who said, "Journal through it.  Do writing prompts and characters studies." So I have - and though I'm still unsure of what the quality is, at least I'm writing, and that's an amazing step forward.

They give me distraction and belief in flying high, like Donna, who went to BEA and had a week of amazingness.  Because writing highs are possible, and even if I can't see one ahead of me now, I can enjoy someone else's in the meantime.

They give me tools, like Talia, who heard about The War of Art by Steven Pressfield on the Verla Kay boards and made sure I got a copy to read.  I'm working my way through it, and learning about the blocks that I put in my own way (Procrastination, anyone?  Fear of failure?  Fear of success?) and how to tackle them.

I joke that the Muses staged an intervention for me.  It's not an entirely accurate term, but it's close.  They encouraged me not to seek help, but to help myself.  They reminded me that I have people I can count on - people who know and understand what I'm up against.  And every day, they offered the best of themselves.

That, my friends is a writing high.

When people approached me on my recent trip to NYC for BEA to talk to me about my new book, they almost all expressed surprise that SKINNY was my debut novel. Mostly, I just smiled and nodded because, honestly, it was just too hard to explain.

SKINNY is my first novel...that was published.

They didn't know (and I didn't tell them) about the many, many picture book manuscripts, the early reader series, and the two completed young adult novels that didn't sell.  I also didn't tell them I wrote and submitted my first children's manuscript, a picture book, in 1992.

Twenty years ago.

Many times over the years I was close. Dream crushingly close.  I had some small successes.  There were agents...submissions... but, ultimately, rejections.  Lots and lots of rejections. I raged, and then grieved, the really tough ones. I gave up many times. Sometimes for years.

Eventually I picked myself up, applied what I'd learned, and wrote the next thing. It was the writing itself that drew me back.  I wanted to put words on the page.  I wanted to create characters and stories. Maybe I would never be an author, and maybe no one would read it, but I would always be a writer.

So then I wrote the next thing.

And the next.  And the next.

And, eventually, I wrote SKINNY.

Hopefully, I'll write many more publishable novels that connect with readers.  I wish I could say it was easier now.  It isn't.  Perhaps I'm a better writer now, and I've learned much about publishing, but it's never easy to share your heartfelt writing with a larger audience.

If you are in the midst of rejection, you don't want to hear my story. You especially don't want to hear that it might take time and that you might have to face many more setbacks.  At this moment, it's hard to think of the next thing.

That's okay.

Rage.

Then grieve.

Then open up your computer and write something wonderful that never would have come out of you without everything that came before.