Read Around the Rainbow | Deciding What to Write

ReadAroundTheRainbow

It’s Read Around the Rainbow time! On the last Friday of every month, we’re a bunch of authors who blog on the same topic. This month, we’ll be chatting about how we decide what to write next.

When we’ve finished a story, and it’s time to move on, what is it that gets us going on a new idea?

For me, the answer is pretty simple. I just move on to the next story on my schedule. Did it ruin your vision of the muse showing up and sweeping me off my feet?

I’m sorry.

I wish I could say I was this bohemian (I am) who lived in a cabin in the woods (I live in a pretty big house in the woods) who was one with nature and let the stories take me wherever they wanted to go.

I do a little of that. I let my stories take me where they want to go, but outside of the time I spend writing, I’m boringly organised. At the beginning of this year, I had already cleared all my releases with my publisher. I sent them a list, saying This is what I’m gonna do, and they said Great, I’ve got you.

I am actually, right now, checking off the last one.

We’ve done it. And the we consist of J.M. Snyder, Lourenza Adlem, Gabi Cervenka, and Leonie Duncan who have been working with me every month of this year. I don’t even dare to think about how many hours have been invested. Not to mention Nell Iris and Ally Lester who get up at the crack of dawn with me and listen to me bitch about my stories 😆

It’s time to make a new plan. A new schedule. New goals, deadlines, and so on.

But it’s been a pretty rough year. I haven’t had time to take a break. As soon as I’ve sent a story off to my beta readers, I’ve started the next one on the schedule. There have been times when I’ve been writing on one story, doing edits on one, and going through beta notes on a third.

I don’t have time to sit and wait for the muse. I’m sure some authors do. I don’t have time not to write for a day or two if I don’t feel like it. My alarm goes off at 05:40 every day, seven days a week. (Though, I have been flirting with the idea of taking weekends off.) Then I sit by my desk doing words for three hours, then I walk my dog, then I do social media, then the kids get home from school and it’s time for homework and snack and time to cook and so on.

If my muse isn’t showing up at 6-ish in the morning, when I sit down by my desk, then I work without her.

Aaand this is where I remind you that I love what I do, and I’m not really complaining. I could’ve had a ‘real’ job instead, but this is what I want to do.

So how do I pick what to write? I hop on over to National Today or some similar site, and then I scroll through the months and see if there is anything that tickles my fancy. Sometimes someone suggests a day and I write it down for future consideration.

I have a few scrawled down in my bullet journal. I have:

January – Appreciate a Dragon Day, which seems like a good opportunity to revisit Dragon Row in Edge.

April – Kiss Your Mate Day. I have an idea niggling…

July – Invite An Alien To Live With You Day. I don’t have a solid idea at this moment, but come on! Too good to pass up, and thank you, Nell, for bringing it to my attention 😆

August – International Can-It-Forward Day. This came to me while writing Vampire Food. What do you do with an abundance of food – you can it of course. So we’ll see if there will be a sequel there.

That’s what I have written down at this point. I haven’t decided if I’m gonna write them, but since they’ve lived in my mind for some time, it’s likely.

So that’s how I do it! Then things pop up in my mind about characters or certain scenes I want and things like that, but the starting point is always the day I’m writing for.