Winner of 'Inside Out' and Starting All Over Again

Thanks for stopping by and saying hello to Maria Snyder, blog friends. After a lengthy selection process (you know, writing names on pieces of paper and drawing one out of a hat) Myrna has been declared winner!

So Myrna, email me your address at kellybryson02(at)hotmail(dot)com. Thanks again to Maria for being so generous with her time and for providing such an awesome prize!

So, I've essentially finished Pulse. It's in the hands of some trusted beta readers, and though I will likely have to tweak a few things, I think it's in good shape. I have two query letters out to the agents that Mr. Agent suggested I contact, and a letter to Mr. Agent explaining what changes I've made in response to his feedback and thanking him for the feedback and for the referrals. That was a tricky letter to write, because I wanted to say, "Hey, I got what you were saying and I made some changes' without saying 'You were nice to me and now I shall never leave you alone!'

So. I wait. I check email. I recheck. I check the mailbox, but just once a day. I don't expect a response for another month at least, but that doesn't stop me from feeling like the phone is going to ring any second. Even though I KNOW noone is going to call me to ask for a partial. It's just how it is.

I like to change my phone ringer every once in a while because after a while, the sound of the phone ringing gets me stressed out. But what do you do with your email? Get a new account? Do you paint your mailbox? Fire your mailcarrier? There's nothing.

I was a little mopey on Saturday, and Nathan called me on it.

"You're upset because you finished your book! That's what's wrong with you!"

*crying* "That's *sniff* ridiculous! I'm FINE!"

It's been a little hard to let go. It's a lot like the feeling I've had a week before my babies were born. Just waiting. Empty. There's nothing to DO around here!

Of course, every room in our house needs to be gone through and roughly half our stuff will be going to Goodwill, but that's not what I want. I want the next project. So, I've started brainstorming. I was having trouble being freewheeling enough, so I changed the brainstorming title from 'Story Ideas' to 'Things That Interest Me'. There's a lot less pressure that way.

This is not that impressive visually, but this is where the Santa Fe River in FL disappears underground into caverns in the aquifer. Some crazy insane people scuba dive in there, but they're crazy insane and several of them have died. It resurfaces three miles down stream. My dad has been there after heavy rains and it was a churning whirlpool with logs beating against each other in a terrifying vortex. That's how he explained it to me, anyway;) It reminds me of brainstorming, of trying to get below the surface of the story,

 into the murky heart of the story.

I tried to get Nathan to brainstorm with me, but he was not interested since he had to give me the 'Your book is great and you're a good writer and everything is going to be fine' talk twice this weekend already. He actually threw a fake book idea out there that sparked off something else I was already thinking about, so I'm happy. I've got something to think about, at least.

How do you come up with new ideas? Do you wait for inspiration to hit you or do you think your way into inspiration?