If
you’re an author, you’ve probably been advised to carry a
notebook with you all the time – the way a photographer always
carries a camera. The idea is that you can use the notebook whenever
inspiration strikes: to jot down story ideas, snippets of
conversation, or paragraphs of text that come to mind.
I’ve
had a notebook for more than ten years. It lives in a cubby in my
headboard. I don’t bring it out on the street at least partly
because the contents could be compromising if someone else read them.
Also, I don’t want to lose my ideas. Finally, I seem to get much of
my inspiration in bed. Wipe those thoughts from your dirty mind! What
I mean is that I’m much more likely to come up with ideas after my
work day is through, when I’m relaxing and reading as I normally do
before going to sleep. I also am prone to erotic dreams; I want to
have some place to write them down before the emotions vanish.
When
I browse through the notebook, I
find plenty of thoughts about stuff I haven’t written (at least not
yet). It’s also gratifying, though, to notice how many concepts I
actually have fleshed out and published. Sometimes there’s a long
lag between the appearance of an idea and its realization. I might
have an inspiration, but not be able to devote the necessary time or
energy to bring it to fruition.
I’ve
decided this shouldn’t bother me. Sometimes, I’m just not ready
to follow my ideas.
This
weekend, I started work on a series I outlined in my notebook more
than six years ago. At that time, I was writing almost exclusively
erotic romance, for an indie publisher. I’d realized that my
colleagues had better sales when they wrote series rather than
standalone titles, and thought I should give it a go. So I roughed
out the framework for a set of steampunk books entitled The
Toy Makers Guild.
The
basic premise: a remote mansion in an alternative Victorian England,
where a group of brilliant young engineers (male and female) create
customized, automated sex toys for wealthy and influential clients.
Of course, anyone who worked in such an environment would need to be
both sexually liberal and sexually knowledgeable. A bit of a taste
for dominance and submission would also be appropriate, given the
British love of corporal punishment.
This
notion set the creative juices flowing. At the time, though (I see
now), I just wasn’t ready to write a series. Plus I was having a
hard time reconciling
my notions about
the free-wheeling sexual environment in the Guild with
the constraints of the erotic romance genre.
Fast
forward to 2020. I’ve written two series at this point (Vegas Babes
and Asian Adventures). I have a much better understanding of how to
link a set of books together. My imagination is less likely to shut
down after I write “The End” for a single book. Meanwhile, I’m
now self-publishing almost all my work, which means I don’t have to
follow anyone’s rules about genre or what is and is not acceptable.
So
I’m happy to announce that I’ve written the first two chapters of
The
Pornographer’s Apprentice,
which will be the first book in The Toy Makers Guild series. I have
titles and plans for the next two as well – they’re right there
in the notebook – though of course my ideas may change as I write.
That’s
okay. The purpose of the notebook is to capture ideas, not to
constrain them.
Stay
tuned!
