I’ve been thinking a lot about what book I want to write next. If this were a world where I wasn’t averse to throwing caution to the wind and writing whatever the hell I wanted with no regard for my future career as a novelist, I’d write a sequel to the book I wrote earlier this year. I’m not ready to say goodbye to these characters, and there are so many stories I could tell in the world I made for them.
Buuut if my book doesn’t sell, I want to have the next project in the works already. Something to live for, if I’m being dramatic about it, which I always am. A sequel, if I start writing one, will die on the vine if book one isn’t a success. So I’m keeping those stories in the back of my mind, percolating, until they’re needed.
In the meantime, I’ve written bits of other things. I outlined a complete YA fantasy rom com and wrote 11k words of it before… well, I got bored with it. I was going to say it wasn’t “speaking to me” or that it wasn’t the genre I wanted to write at this point in my life, in an effort to make myself sound less wishy-washy, but I honestly just got bored. I figure that’s a luxury I have now, while I’m unpublished and free to dick around with book ideas until one sticks, so I’m allowing myself to drop projects after 11k words and move on. No deadlines and no expectations? A good thing!
The thing is, I have a lot of ideas but nothing is grabbing me, needing to be written. I think the most promising option right now is to write something in the world of my book, but with different characters and planets and conflicts. A spinoff, a distant prequel, something?? But I just don’t know. There are things I love to read and things I’m good at writing, and I’m learning that those things don’t necessarily intersect. Nor should they, I guess. I love writing light-hearted action-packed romantic comedies in space, so… I’m thinking maybe that’s what I should keep writing.
Part of me thinks I should branch out or change it up, just to keep from getting stuck in a rut, but… why? As I said before, it’s not like I have deadlines. Nobody expects anything from me, not yet.
Then why do I feel so stuck? How have I not come up with the plot of my next book yet?
Oh my god how do people come up with ideas!!??? !!1??
Hhhhhhow.
Guys, how!!
Anyway I’ve started having an existential crisis, so I guess it’s time to go to bed. This was a pointless post. Bye.
meg smitherman 