The Unexpected Changes That Come From Finally Selling A Novel (Part 1 in a Series)

When, after twenty-five years of plugging away, I finally sold my first novel, I thought the changes would be more personal than professional.  After all, how different can it be, moving from a short story writer to a novelist?
As it turns out, quite a bit.
Short stories don’t need blurbs.  Short stories don’t have covers to discuss.  Short stories are tiny events, and do not require the author to see what promotions he can whip up amongst his friends. If my short story is disappointing, that’s a bad review in Locus and maybe a slight black mark on the editor’s legacy, but my tale is surrounded by four other stories and they can hold up the slack.
My impending novel, on the other hand, drops on its own.  I am solely responsible for it.  And so even though I’m not a self-publisher and Angry Robot is handling most of the hard work in terms of editing/finding a good cover/selling it to B&N/Amazon/Powells/whoever , I’m still thinking up ways to get the word out because this is my baby.  I’ve never really had to think this much about “Say, how do I inform people about this thing?  How do I get people to express their enthusiasm for it where other people can see it?” because until now, a blog post was sufficient.  This involves actual marketing, and though I could lie back and just let everyone else do the work, I think y’all know that’s not my style.
But the biggest change?  Short stories are short, and deadline-free.
I mean, they do have deadlines, if you write for anthologies (I can’t, as my stories take upwards of a year to gestate), and certainly edits are due after acceptance.  But generally, it’s “write a story on any topic, send it off whenever.”  And if they like it, they like it!  And if they don’t, well, whatevs.
So I’m used to wandering free as a cloud, letting my muse flit from tale to tale – and since stories generally take me about two to three weeks to finish a draft, my schedule’s been my own.
However.  The edits for Flex (please buy it) drop sometime in mid-May.  That’s about two weeks from now.  And I’m working on two novels – the sequel to Flex, which exists mostly inside my head at this point, and the story of a space-bound gourmet restaurant, which I have three chapters written for and want to continue.
Normally, I’d just say, “All right, let’s do this!” and commit the next three months to powering out a first draft.  But I can’t start the process, because for me, writing a novel is like uncorking a soda – you need to finish it quickly, before all the fizz leaks out.  And I know from years of experience managing my creative muse that if I pour all my energy into New Book, then get yanked rudely out of New Book Headspace to rewrite portions of Flex, by the time I return from Old Novel Land, poor little New Novel will be deflated and decarbonated.
So I’m in a holding pattern, with two novels I really want to sink my teeth into, and not quite able to let slip the dogs of war because I have Deadline barring my way.  And there was a recent Writing Excuses talking about this same problem, where once they became novelists they had to deal with the reality of Edits potentially bursting through the enthusiasm of this new project like some sort of sadistic Kool-Aid Man.
Which is weird.  If I’m successful at this, then I’m going to have to find a way to restructure my creativity so that I don’t need an uninterrupted three months to finish a novel.  But for now, I’m new enough at writing novels that people want to publish that I’m not going to futz with the formula that got me here.
So I’ve got all the reason in the world to write: I’m on contract for a sequel, manuscript due next summer.  I’ve got a really cool spacebound restaurant based in part on the Velvet Tango Room.  And I’m sitting here walking in small circles, working on tiny projects that don’t require ambition, because soon Amanda will plop her revision requests for Flex on my desk and I must be ready.
So I’m twiddling. Twiddling as hard as I can.