Writer-Talk Tuesday: When the Contract Ends

As I posted about last week, I am now no longer under contract for future books. Although it was a few months between the end of my contract for the Matchmakers series (I turned in Turnabout’s Fair Play in May 2011) and when I signed the contract for The Great Exhibition Series (August 2011), at that point, I never felt like I had come to an “end”—because I had three series proposals out with different publishers (two contemporary, and the GE series) and I knew eventually I’d sign another contract.

But what happens to an author when her contract ends and there is nothing else immediately on the horizon?

Well . . . we take naps, first of all, to catch up on all the sleep we lose when we’re on deadline. 😉

In truth, I don’t have an answer to this question. This is the first time I haven’t been contracted—or actively seeking a contract—in almost seven years. And for two years before that, I was in graduate school, working on Stand-In Groom as if it were under contract. Writing for publication, writing on deadline, has been my life for almost ten years now. And I have four series, of which I am very proud, to show for it.

But is this it? Is this all I have to offer the world?

Are these twelve books to be my legacy?

As a single woman who’s known since age twenty-nine that I would never have children, the idea of leaving a lasting legacy for me has been different than it is for most people. I will never have a son or daughter to “carry on the family name.” I will never be like my grandmother, surrounded on her 90th birthday in 2011 by her six children (and spouses), 20 grandchildren (and spouses), and 20+ great-grandchildren (and growing) as a visible, vocal, and vital legacy. Nor like my mom and sister who, next week, get to watch one of their legacies, my niece, graduate from high school (I get to see my niece the week after when we’re both at my parents’ house in Arkansas for vacation).

I’ve known, ever since I started the pursuit of publication, that my legacy is my books. My legacy also includes the people I’ve taught and mentored over the years—even those who might not remember my name. Though my father does not have a son to “carry on the family name,” I’ve managed to do so by having our family name—one that, let’s face it, isn’t well known—out here in cyberspace and on bookshelves. So I feel like I’ve done my part to carry the legacy of my parents. But are the books I’ve written so far enough of a legacy for me?

I know, this sounds like a massive existential crisis—a quandary with no viable answer.

This is but a milestone.

We cannot go through a year without the changing of seasons (some more dramatic than others, depending on where you live). Nor can we go through life without the changing of seasons.

It is a truth universally acknowledged: I will never stop writing.

Even though I’m so happy to be out from under the pressure of contractual deadlines and looking forward to taking a break from writing for a little while to allow myself to recharge my creativity and decide what I really want to work on next, I know that I’ll never be able to stop writing. Writing stories is one of the main ways in which I connect with and understand both myself and the world around me. I’ve been doing it since my early teen years (and coming up with stories long before I started writing them down). It’s the only thing I know, the one constant in my life that has never faltered—even when I’ve been in the pangs of the worst writer’s block I’ve ever experienced.

So . . . what happens when the contract ends?

The same thing that happens every other day of my life. I keep writing.