Silence

It’s quiet now. Silence, for the first time ever. No more voices in my head, no more imaginary world to hide in, no more story lines to run through an develop.

Silence.

I believe this is the loneliest feeling ever. I closed up the last of the Starstone Series last night, book five, the Shadow of Time. It’s over. The story that has been growing inside me all of my life, the story that wanted, needed to be written, has been written.

I believe that I will miss Nahorim the most. He has been my personal hero, for so long, I can hardly remember a life without him. He has been my first thoughts in the sleepy mornings when I went to the stables, through snow and rain and mud, he has kept me sane, kept me focused for most my life. He has been my last thoughts at night, effectively taking my mind off the problems of everyday life, of sick horses and bills to pay and school and work and anything else.

This world, has been my refuge. Nahorim has been my hero. Now, it’s all gone. The story is told. I have to walk away. I have to let Nahorim go. For the first time in fifteen years, I am on my own. He is not there at the back of my mind, ready to bring me into his magical world, waiting to keep my mind busy.

I no longer have a place in his world.

Nahorim, and every one of the others will always stay with me, I am looking forward to go over the books again, editing them one by one, preparing them for release- still counting on having the second book in the series, The Twins, out by the beginning of March- I am looking forward to reading all of it again, but it will be different now.

The next time I open one of those books, I will do so as a guest. I have played my part. The story no longer needs me to write it. I will never again, belong in this world.  I will never interact with any of my characters again.

I miss them horribly, all of them, already. The silence in my head is killing me.

I thought I would be relieved once the story was told, I thought I would love to have my mind to myself, to be able to maybe create a new world and write a different story, maybe even take on some Sci-fi, or something completely different, develop as a writer, try new things… finish my book on Natural Horsemanship, stuff like that. And I am looking forward to it. I really am. But no, I am not relieved that the Starstone Series are finally written.

I feel lost without them in my head.

I know that as a writer, you are not supposed to end up that close to your characters, it may even sound a tiny bit insane, but I can’t help it. If other writers set up imaginary dates with their characters, trying to get to know them better, I have had to force them out of my head for years, whenever I had to focus on something else. I could be competing with one of the horses and in the middle of a show, Nahorim would pop into my head, sidetracking me, as I suddenly realized where the story needed to go now, or what I had left out and had to remember to add and… I have had to banish them all from my mind, time and time again, when real life came in the way, and as soon as I wasn’t actively forcing them away, they would slip back into my thoughts, unnoticed, uncalled for, telling me the story, I needed to write down as soon as I got the time… So no, I never needed to get to know any of them better, I never questioned who any of them were, deep down or on the surface. I knew each and every one of them by heart.

Now they are gone. All of them. Just… Silence.

How am I ever going to get used to that?

What do writers do, once the story is told? How do you not go crazy, from the silence in your head?

I hope I’ll write again soon. I know I will pick up the Danish translation of The Twins now, and edit it through, preparing it for release and I know that as soon as book three, The Crown Prince, is returned from my editor, and translator, I will look forward to read it through as well, and I know that I will pick up my Horsemanship book now, and tell just another story that needs to be told. The story of my Heart, my soul, my star, my endless night, my beautiful Poseidon and his brother Apollon. But that story is not fantasy. I do not interact with it. It is not screaming in my head at all hours of the day. Hopefully though, it can keep me from going insane, until I figure out where to go from here, how to move past the Starstone Series, once and for all.

How to get used to the silence…

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