Post-publishing Blues

Recently, I’ve been feeling adrift. Unmotivated.

I must be leaking, I mused. When I spring a new CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) leak, or exacerbate an existing one, along with the increased headaches, tinnitus, excessive sleeping, and shortened temper, I feel unmotivated to do even simple, daily tasks. I put all but the most critical things off. I know I’m on the mend when I start sweeping floors, scrubbing toilets, and doing routine housework again.

Giving it more thought, I realized this recent round of low CSF started a week earlier, a couple weeks after literally hauling Chann off a porcupine. It was Chann’s first encounter with one, and after his initial attempt to say hello got him a nose full of quills, he got mad and tried to bite his antagonist. That led to more quills, in his tongue, gums, and lips. He got madder still. The porcupine just wanted peace and started walking from the field into the woods. Chann followed, attacking, getting more quills, me yelling and trying to grab him by his tail or visibility vest, but failing as he kept lunging at the porcupine. A horror show.

The porcupine made it into the trees, Chann in hot pursuit, me right behind, pushing maple branches out of my way. The porcupine quickly got stuck in a pile of small boulders. Chann was trying to kill it, even got it on its back, oblivious to quills. I grasped Chann’s vest near his neck and hauled him off the porcupine and out from under the trees where I was able, finally, to attach his leash.

The porcupine was fine, minus several quills. They grow back in a few days. Nor is it painful for a porcupine to lose quills. When it’s porcupine versus dog, the porcupine always wins.

Chann’s fine, now, but only after the vet was able to take him in immediately, sedate him, and remove 60 quills from his mouth, face, legs and paws. I removed another 10-15 over the next couple of days, mostly small ones buried in the thick fur on his forelegs, but also a couple larger ones that migrated through and out his muzzle. So sharp!

Several days later after that incident, low-CSF symptoms began in earnest. I know from long experience it takes one or two weeks before I notice symptoms from a new leak, usually caused by a trip or fall. I had neither tripped nor fallen recently, so it was a couple of days before I connected the dots. Lifting, twisting, straining… all are no-no’s for my spine’s delicate dura. In grabbing and lifting 70-pound Chann, I did all three. For the next three days, I slept 14-16 hours a day, dreaming vividly (another low-CSF symptom), and barely moved beyond my yard when I was awake.

I’m fine now, too. My leaks usually resolve on their own within a couple more weeks. They rarely fully seal, but repair enough that I can go about my life with just low-level symptoms.

But the malaise, the excessive lack of motivation, persisted. Why? I’ve never suffered from depression (knock on wood), and rarely feel sad.

Since the 1980s I’ve kept training logs where I record miles spent running, walking, snowshoeing, skiing, etc. I note which dogs or friends I’m with, and location. I usually add a few words about the weather, how I felt and how the dogs did. My training logs act as a diary, or journal, and were instrumental in writing Wild Running. They allowed me to write about past runs by—along with photos taken on the same date—sparking detailed memories.

Today, in my training log I wrote: Ugh/rest day. What’s wrong with me? No motivation. Hope it’s just low CSF and slow recovery from recent big leak [Chann-porcupine incident]. Or post-publishing depression? Raining am, so didn’t even take boys for walks.

As soon as I wrote “post-publishing depression” I wondered, Is that a real thing?

I googled it, and yes, it is.

In recent years, a few writers have shared their own experiences with post-publishing depression. They usually peg it to the two months or so after launching a book. Some note the similarities with post-partum depression, as in, a happy event followed by sadness or depression. In that context, my current lack of motivation makes sense.

Still, I wondered why I didn’t experience it after publishing my first book, Growing Up Boeing, in February 2014. Reflecting, I remember receiving lots of unexpected praise along with invitations to give presentations in the Seattle area, where I was living at the time. Seattle’s Museum of Flight was instrumental in helping me launch the book and reach readers. They also stocked the book in their museum store. I didn’t know a thing about marketing, but I didn’t need to; it happened organically in the only city where it could, Boeing’s hometown for over a century.

Also, when Growing Up Boeing launched, I was planning to return permanently to my home in Idaho. I was excited to end my temporary relocation to Seattle to ride out the 2009 recession, an absence from Idaho that stretched to nearly five years. My dogs—Maia, Meadow, and Finn—and I were all happier in Idaho, something I witnessed whenever we spent our vacation time there. I wrote most of Growing Up Boeing at my Idaho house during the summer of 2013. I was eager to return, especially since Maia was 14 and in remission from lymphoma. I wanted her last days to be in Idaho. I was preoccupied with managing all the logistics of selling my Seattle townhouse in time for a May move to Idaho.

With all that going on, I guess I didn’t have time to feel any post-publication depression. Even after the move back to Idaho, for the next couple of years, I occasionally made the trip to Seattle to give more book presentations, keeping the excitement and joy of publishing fresh.

Ten years later (it seems to take me ten years per book), I anticipated similar positive emotions about publishing Wild Running: joy, and a sense of accomplishment. But now, I’m living in Vermont. (The reasons are explained, in detail, in Wild Running.) I have no expectations for local readership for a book set primarily in the West, or invitations to speak or attend book signings. And that’s fine. My expectations for Wild Running are low and slow. So far—two months in—I’ve already gone beyond them (in terms of positive reviews). It’s gratifying.

Despite that, I feel like a slug, motivation-wise. Definitely not my “normal.”

So, it was reassuring to find and read the accounts of other writers who felt the same post-publication blues.

Next question, though, is, what do I do about it?

For the past year, I was focused on completing my “wolf book,” getting developmental editing advice, incorporating that, revising the manuscript, having the entire thing line edited (which led to excellent developmental editing; thank you Susan), reaching out for blurbs, finding a cover designer and formatter. Most of that cost a pretty penny. And, self-publishing means I arranged all of it. It was exhausting and exciting at the same time. I woke each morning eager to tackle that day’s tasks, and after the dogs and I got some exercise, worked on the manuscript all day. I went to bed late each night with my mind whirling with what still needed doing, eager to start again the next day.

It was fun. I could see how my book was improving with each step, powerful motivation to keep working.

Eventually, I said to myself, Done. I could have kept working. I could always find something to tweak, revise, improve. But I learned with my first book that there comes a point where the manuscript feels good enough, something to be proud of, ready to fledge.

Wild Running launched on April 1, 2024.

Unfortunately, I didn’t already have the next project ready to start.

I’m reminded of similar feelings of loss and lack of motivation after finishing a daunting ultra-distance running challenge. For months, I trained and planned. I toed the start line, and many hours later, stumbled to the finish. I felt elation at the accomplishment, like I was walking on air (despite legs so tired and trashed I could barely make it to my motel bed). Soon, though, I felt lost, especially if I took too many recovery days and didn’t run. I didn’t know what to do next. Eventually, I learned to have a new goal in the queue, ready to go, another challenging event to train for immediately after completing the current one. That kept my mind focused and provided motivation during that post-race phase of mixed emotions.

That, I think, is where the post-publication blues originate: the gap between projects. Working on Wild Running over the past twelve months took up so much brain space and energy. Now, post-publication, I feel a mental and emotional void. I miss the eagerness to start each day working on a manuscript I’m invested in, creatively and financially. I thought I would fill my post-publication “free” time being outside with my dogs, and that certainly helps, but it’s not quite the same. The process of writing a book fulfills my creative purpose. It’s a visceral hunger that can only writing can satiate.

Distance running and book writing are similar, I find. Both are mostly solitary pursuits (with some outside help along the way, of course), requiring mental discipline to keep plodding onward toward an elusive goal, despite setbacks. Success, in the form of reaching that goal, is most keenly experienced alone. The emotions surrounding that success are hard to share. Too few know or understand the long, often excruciating journey.

This morning, shortly after writing in my training log and googling post-publication depression, I realized I had already taken some baby steps toward a new project. Three weeks ago, I revised an old piece, a short essay from 2011 I had titled The Kindness of a Stranger. I submitted it an occasional column by the same name hosted on CNN’s website. I don’t expect to see it published. But, the piece was fun to revise. I saw it fits nicely into a book theme I’ve been pondering for a couple years now. It includes a quote, uttered by that complete stranger to me when I most needed to hear it, a line that is now the working title of that (likely) next nonfiction book: Families are Meant to Break Our Hearts.

Hmm. It seems my subconscious was prompting me to get past the post-publication blues by setting—or recognizing—a new goal.

After writing that working title on this page, sharing it with you, I’m feeling… motivated.

Feature photo: Annual staff celebrates its publication in the library, Littleton College, 1907. Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0.