Too many ideas? (#amwriting #imagination #WIP)

It’s been quite a while since I had a major release. Mostly this is because my real world job has taken over almost all my time. However, another factor is the fact that lately I seem to have too many ideas.

I shouldn’t complain. Lots of writers spend hours staring at their screens, trying to produce a page or two. I don’t usually suffer from writer’s block. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll give you a couple of thousand words, quite reliably.

These days, though, if I can get those hours, I seem to be facing a new question: what book should I work on?

At the moment I have two major works in progress, The Werewolf and the Vampire (a sort of spiritual sequel to The Gazillionaireand the Virgin) and Damned If You Do, a tongue-in-cheek tale of an author’s Faustian bargain. I started the first book back in April, planning to release around Halloween. When it became clear in mid-summer that this wouldn’t be possible, I began working on Damned, which I figured would be shorter and maybe quicker. I couldn’t make Halloween—too much business travel. Then Coming Together came out with a CFS in reaction to the U.S. election, so I put Damned aside to work on Divided We Fall. That turned out to be over 7K words, long for a short story, and took me three weeks (writing a few hours per week).

I was just getting ready to dive back into Damned, when I had an idea for a new novel. Stolen Gifts would be a sequel to my MM holiday paranormal novel NecessaryMadness—told from the former villain’s perspective, and ultimately turning that villain into the hero. I even wrote the first few pages, which I’ve posted here.

Then I realized Christmas was only a few weeks away. I’d really love to write a holiday short, and I’ve come up with what I think is a fabulous premise...but that means putting Stolen Gifts on hold, just when the juices are starting to flow!

I also have an inspiration for an F/F anthology I’d like to pitch to my lesbian publisher LadyLit. I know so many talented authors of lesfic that I know I could put together an amazing book. Another idea, another distraction, another book on the WIP stack. (So far I’ve held off on this project, but knowing myself, I suspect I’m eventually going to give in to the temptation.)

I’ve never had this problem before. I’ve always been very linear about my writing, working on one project at a time. Now I have so irons in the fire that it’s bewildering.

I’ll finish them all. Eventually. I apologize to those of you who enjoy my work. I wish I could put out a new book every few months. Time is the main obstacle. Certainly, I have no dearth of inspiration!