Earning My Next Book

I write in series, not in parallel, if I can borrow an analogy from physics. When I write a book, that’s the only book I’m working on. Some writers (looking at you, Isaac Asimov) can write multiple books at a time, working on one in the morning, and another in the afternoon, or setting up some kind of alternating schedule. If I did that, the chaos that would ensue from mixed-up plots and worse, mixed-up characters, would be fierce. So I write my books one at a time.

This does not mean, however, that ideas from the next book in the series, or even from a completely different story line, don’t creep into my writing mind. Of course they do. In fact, part of my struggle with writing anything is figuring out what belongs in the current work, and what is really meant to go into a future story, whether in the series or not.

I once asked Terri Reid if she had that problem and she knew exactly what I was talking about, so that was a relief. I’m not the only writer struggling with this kind of problem. Unfortunately, she never did tell me what I could do about it. I guess we all have to figure it out for ourselves.

So when I have these ideas pop up, whether they’re scenes, or snippets of dialogue, or even a plot line, I write them down in one of my notebooks for future reference. And that’s the best I can do. Because if I tried to follow every new shiny object that caught my interest at that moment, I’d never get anything done. Does that make me ADD? Maybe when it comes to writing.

Thus, the idea of having to “earn” my next book. It’s not unlike the concept of finishing all my vegetables so I can have dessert. When I’m trying to get something done—for instance, how I’m trying right now to finish BPC series book 7—I need to put all future story ideas into safe storage until the time arrives to take them out and look at them for a new work. But in the meantime, I need to finish what I’ve started. And that’s how I earn the future project.

It’s a discipline, of sorts. It’s like keeping my eye on the ball/road/prize. If I can finish what I’m slogging through, I get to play with the new toys. Sometimes it’s just enough to keep me going. Sometimes it helps me rein in my focus because I want to frolic around with something new and different. Of course, writing life being what it is, by the time I get around to working with the new things, they become familiar and broken-in, and then I’m ready to be distracted by the next bunch of new and shiny objects.

As a corollary, it turns out I do this with reading, too. Sometimes, I have to earn the next book I read, whether by finishing the book I’m writing, or by finishing a book I’m reading that’s good, but is not as attractive as the next one in the queue. I do this with library books all the time. I borrow multiple books so I can try out new authors, but also among that stack of books are some of my favorite writers, and I save those books for last. Earning the right to read those books. Eating my vegetables so I can have what I’m really aiming at.

Dessert.