I’ve got seven chapters left before I’m done with the final edit of The Balance of Light. Once that’s done, it’ll be a week or two of formatting, processing, creating the cover, and releasing it out into the world. It’s looking like that may end up being the first or second week of February at this point.
And then I’m done with the Bridgetown Trilogy.
Then what?
I mean, aside from my next project, Meet the Lidwells!, which I’ve been sneakily working on now and again during downtime.
Nearly everything I’ve ever worked on is more than five years old already; the Bridgetown story will officially turn twenty (!!) in March. My trunked vampire novel, Love Like Blood, was brainstormed around 2003, written over the course of four years, and finally trunked by 2008. Numerous other ideas, many of which I’ve also trunked or given up on, were created at our old apartment, which we moved out of in 2009. I’ve been focusing so much on the trilogy that I’ve only got maybe two or three solid ideas I could work on — if that.
So what do I have planned, anyway?
Well, the biggest plan I have is to try to see how quickly I can turn a project around. I know I can do it — I’ve written and revised past works in a very limited amount of time. I can definitely work to a deadline.
I also want to try writing something that’s not epic in length. Lidwells is partly an attempt at that. I’d like to write some standalone novels. Not everyone loves a good doorstopper novel, so I’d like to appeal to the quick-reader fans as well. This will not only teach me how to narrow my focus on the plot, it’ll also be a great exercise in concise writing.
I may even try a short story or two. Technically I’ve written only one, and it’s pretty bad. It was my ‘just to see if I could do it’ attempt during a very slow and broke-as-hell summer over twenty years ago.
But do I have any ideas rolling around right now?
That’s a good question. Technically, no. I only have the Lidwells project, maybe a reboot of Can’t Find My Way Home…and that’s it. As I’ve said, this is why I’m making myself do the daily practice words. I’ve already come up with snippets of scenes, snatches of bigger ideas, and random conversation that may be worth looking into later on.
It’s a bit daunting, to say the least. Yeah, my subconscious occasionally pops in and reminds me that the only thing I can ever write in this lifetime is more Mendaihu Universe tomes, and if I don’t write them, I won’t have anything at all. And that voice I usually ignore. I’ve been in this Clean Slate situation before. It’s completely natural to be nervous.
But hell, if Lidwells can pop up out of nowhere and take on a life of its own, I’m sure I can make that happen again.
Here’s to hoping.
Welcome to Bridgetown 