god, architect, and janitor

I have been working pretty much all the time on Eli book 4, The Spirit War. This is the most intensely I think I've ever worked on a book over such a long period of time. Day after day I write/edit for at least 4 hours of intense focus. Four hours may not sound like much, but I am a tiny, crushed creature when I finish. It's like waking up from a drinking binge, I feel disoriented coming back to the real world after being god, architect, and janitor in mine. Sometimes I literally have to sit and wait five minutes before driving home from the coffee shop where I go to write and flee my child (he has learned that I still exist when I go into a room he can not see, so I must leave the house or the sitter gets no peace) because I don't trust myself to drive in a straight line.

It's a crazy experience to be sure, but I can almost taste this book. I'm tugging on the strings as hard as I can, trying to pull it all together with the right timing, the right emotion, and with all the loose ends bound in. I will say, though, after 5 books written, this is the first one where I've truly felt like an author and not just some writer who's somehow tricked people into publishing her. I feel more in charge of my work, more together, more capable of spinning larger things. I can't decide if this is a real shift in the way I write or a coping mechanism for this novel. Either way, I'll find out soon enough.