I’m suffering from a major case of post-nanowrimo depression right now, which I would assume is pretty similar to post-partum depression. Or drug withdrawals.
It’s pretty simple really. The act of creation is so thrilling and stimulating and awesome that when it’s over, there’s nothing left inside but a black empty void of nothingness. For me, it generally manifests as a fervent desire to stare at the walls and feel useless all day. It’s really bad after nanowrimo because a lot of concentrated creative energy is released in a short time, which makes the corresponding crash even worse.
And it’s particularly bad for me this year because I wrote a LOT of words – 90k in 30 days is just ridiculous for me. That’s 3,000 words every day! That’s crazy. Years ago I used to think 1,500 words a day was doing well, and last year I struggled to keep up with the 1,667 words a day needed to reach the 50k finish line.
It takes quite an intentional effort to break out of it and get back to normal daily functioning. (One way to do that, btw, is to write a blog post about it.)
