Almost every I writer I know goes through some form of postpartum after finishing a book. For some it’s more pronounced than others. It depends on different factors: how long you’ve worked on the book, how passionate you were about it, how much of a toll it exacted from your life. Some writers already know what the next book is and that makes it a little easier. Others have no idea what or if they’ll ever write again. That makes it a little harder.
When I was an editor, one of my first authors sent a birth announcement along with her first book. It read: It’s a Girl. Weight: 2 pounds, 1 ounce. Length: 8 1/2 inches.
A writer I’ve been working with for over a decade turned in her book today. She burst into tears. We were both exhasuted having worked intensely for three days. She referred to me as a mid-wife at one point, and I bridled at the label, imagining myself in a bandana and highwaisted jeans and Crocs. But it was accurate. I did everything but ice chips. I’m not saying a book is a baby, but it is your baby and there’s no way you can push one out and not, at the very least, have some kind of postpartum mood swing. Equilibrium will return, usually just in time for the agony of actually being published.
Betsy Lerner 
Just after I turned in my master’s thesis (half a memoir), I ran into my memoir in the hallway. She asked if I was depressed yet. I was puzzled. She said give it an hour or two. It took about two. I was a mess.
I’m just relieved that it happens to everyone.
I was wondering if I got away without it on my book, my first, but I think I just delayed it. I kept so busy getting my website redone and all the launch and then promotion stuff, I think it’s just hitting me now, gradually, four months after pub.
It helps having a good agent to advise me, though. Haha. Thanks, Betsy.
I was saved from any kind of post-write- ’em misery by my complete lack of intellegence. I am too dumb to have felt anything but relief and gratitude for getting my book done and over with! It had been rattling around in my brain for 10 years before I sat down to get it on paper, and the three years that it took to corral the all the right words and sentences into a coherent auto-biographical narrative were far, far, far worse than actual publication — to a totally indifferent world that would, anyway, rather read books about vampires and more vampires than about moi.
Also, my paralyzing and almost constant fear of death helps me deal with anything that life has to offer: Finishing a book whose creation I’ve cherished and slaved over for more than a decade? A piffle.
Utter and eternal non-existence? That kind of makes me sad.
Well said, as always, Betsy. Thanks for saving me from grabbing that dull knife in the kitchen. Like a newborn, it still keeps me up at night. Let’s hope she grows up quickly…
I’ve heard of WIPs being referred to as baby’s before, and even significant others. I totally agree. The works we produce are close to our hearts and we ache to see them in the hands of an accomplished agent or publisher (and eventually, reader!).
But I never would have guessed about the post-partum stuff. Thanks for warning me. I’ll notify my writer friends in advance to be on the look out for a pick-me-up party after I’m published.
How true and how narly the combination of relief and loss you describe. Add to that a fear of being a one book pony and you have my psyche pegged.