Our Nest Feels Empty

There’s a certain silence in the Writing Cave these days. Fewer characters are clamoring for attention, plot complications are down by a third, our writing lives have fewer distractions. And yet, the feeling is bittersweet.

As we mentioned last week, we’ve just released the final book (so far) in our Divided Man series. We’ve been living with Fin and Rook and their friends, family, and enemies for a long time and it’s distinctly weird to be done with them. That parenthetical “so far” up there at the top of this paragraph hints at our separation anxiety. Maybe we aren’t entirely ready to let go of the Tanners after all.

It feels a little like sending our kids off to college. We prepared them as best we could, and when the time came we launched them out into the world. We miss them, and the house feels distinctly empty without them around, but it was time for them to strike out on their own, to make their own marks.

New characters will come along to fill the void left by the Tanners and Tenpennys and talking lava lamps, it will just take a while for us to get to know them and become attached to them in the same way.

When our sons left home, we got a dog. Is it a coincidence that now that our first series is complete we’re talking about getting another?