The Writing Process - Book 4

As I come to a close on the active writing part of book 3, I find myself casting my thoughts to the next story. Yes, there is a book 4 bubbling around in the back of my mind. It’s starting to take shape, growing out of the character development in book 3. 

Although the idea is there, germinating, however, there is always a fallow period between one book and another. Book 4 won’t truly grow into a real story until I start working the editing portion of Book 3, as our changes may change the direction of where book 4 is going. Or, the muse may decide to sing in my ear and I may get pulled into the story of book 4 before book 3 is even in the editing process. It is a mystery to me as much as to the readers, sometimes. 

That fallow period can be frustrating. It can feel like writer’s block, when there is no clear idea of what I want to say or do, although it really isn’t a block. It’s more like ideas are building and growing and playing in the back of my mind, but I can’t write them yet. I may not be able to write much—I have made a couple of false starts, to find them sputtering out in a dead end. Yet even those “false” starts are valuable, adding depth to the story when it eventually does appear. 

Each story I have written has been its own experience. Although I came into the world of publishing with nine stories already written out, the changes I introduced into the storyline and characters have made the old stories obsolete. So I am back to the world of not knowing what the next story is going to look like. I can only sit, practice and write. Eventually, something will start to move, and build and I will have another story. I don’t write according to a set formula, so while hopefully I am consistent to the characters and true to their arc, each story is its own unique period of development. Maybe it will get easier one day, but for now, each story has its own unique experience of growth.