I am hereby on vacation recovering from New Teacher Blues

How lovely it was rising this morning without feeling compelled to reread my latest draft one more time before I sent it off and then not send it off. They call this strange behavior obsessive compulsive disorder and I only display this behavior moments before I hit the send button with my final copy attached. These twenty something thousand word serials are truly intense. Look for me riding my bike, in my garden or writing pithy comments these next few weeks. Thanks everyone for all your fabulous comments.
IC

Many congrats, IC - New Teacher Blues was a helluva ride, and you may rest in pride at a sizzling novella well completed.

I know that liberating feeling well! In 2010, I spent 8 months sending in about 5,000 words a week of a serial, thinking readers just HAD to have the next episode or they'd forget the characters (and me!). Talk about OCD (Obsessive Comments Desire)!

And what did I do then? Immediately start another one that took a further 5 months!

But serials are good company when you're a little lonely: the characters live with you and keep you entertained.

I look forward to your next, once you tire of thinking up pithy comments as you cycle among your rose-beds.

Well done IC, I too recall making a rash promise to provide a chapter of Never Too Old per week. After 25 weeks or so ( including one very brief part when the characters went on holiday as I couldn't write a proper chapter (one of them complained))

I'm not sure if the pressure to do this improved the story or not.

Well done .

Well done IC. I take my hat off to all serial writers - such dedication.

NTB was worth all those nice comments, IC.

B

I'm so glad you wrote this, I know the characters are not real, yet I feel directed by them. And when someone comments a particular sequence or action was unexpected, I wasn't expecting it either, usually. And once I "humor" the character it seems like the perfect thing to do. I know it is my impulsive subconscious directing me and I no longer fight it.
IC