The cycle of writing, editing, and publishing often leads to down time between drafts. Over at Beyond the Margins, Marlene Adelstein talks about not writing during the down time between submitting a finished manuscript and waiting to hear back from agents and editors:

This non-writing time made me feel edgy and unproductive. But I was determined to make use of this free time I suddenly had, the time I’d normally be using to work on the old novel. Slowly I began to ponder new stories and characters. I let them rumble around in my brain while I walked my dog; I made up ‘what if’ scenarios about them in the shower.