After three years of intensive study, years of writing, redrafting and editing, the MA is done. I printed and bound the novel back at the end of September, posted it off and received my confirmation of receipt a few days ago. Having finished feels a bit like coming up out of the Underground. The air is different and the light is brighter. It also feels a bit like I have lost something.

I keep having the niggling feeling that I should be working on the novel, like the itch of some phantom literary limb. The characters are still knocking about in my head, guests outstaying their welcome. I have a new bunch of friends itching to get on the page, a set of stories I want to have a crack at, a new novel that is tapping at the window waiting to be let in. Yet my just-finished-novel is squirming behind my brow like a hangover. Even sending it to a few agents hasn’t helped it move on.

So, I’ve spent the last two days trying to write and failing. I’m thinking I maybe need to give myself a little downtime before jumping into anything else. Good thing I have a stack of reading to catch up on and research (for novel two and a pair of historical short stories) to be getting on with. Not to mention a short story workshop to plan for the Wolds Words Festival next week. If you’re in Lincolnshire and fancy getting started at this short story lark, get booking; there was only  a handful of places left when I last checked.

Hopefully, all of this will help me decompress after the MA and the writing will start flowing. I might even feel like posting about the whole MA experience, but right now, having fought my way through to the end, wrestling childcare obstacles, work interruptions, and stupid, brilliant, frustrating everyday life, the last thing I feel like right now is dissecting the thing. I’m off to do something else less boring instead.