My Adult Urban Fantasy manuscript is officially out in the querying world, which leads to the question: Now what?
What do I write next?
So far, I’ve been filling my time with more deep cleaning and minor house repairs – not to mention preparing for Back-to-(remote/virtual)-School. I’ve even thoroughly cleaned and organized my desk (Hooray for procrasti-cleaning!)
What I really want to write is the next book in the series of the manuscript I’m querying, but I *know* that’s a terrible idea. Since there’s no guarantee I’ll land an agent (let alone publisher), there’s absolutely no point writing the sequel to a book that may never exist.
I did put some time into writing a rough synopsis for the next book, and I have an idea of where I want the series to go, just in case an agent asks, but starting in on the next book is just not a good plan.
So instead I’ve been pouring over my file of story ideas.
And I think I’ve found something.
It’s actually an idea I came up with for my Mage-series, except I’ve never been able to figure out where it would fall, or how it would work with those characters. But I kept it, thinking maybe it could be a short story one day (despite my absolute inability to write short stories).
And now I think it’s taking on a life of its own.
So, it looks like the next book I write will be a YA (Contemporary) Fantasy about a haunted forest.
I’m a little worried, because right after I made the decision, I saw someone on Twitter remark that haunted forests are going to be the next trend (based on book announcements), but I’m hoping my idea has enough differences to make it stand out.
So now I get the very fun job of plotting out my characters and storyline. It’s great, because I can brainstorm while cleaning (although it does mean I’m paying less attention to my audiobooks).
I’m already itching to start writing. The first paragraph dances in my head at night (don’t worry, I will write it down. I’m not going to risk it evaporating before I’m ready to start writing for real.) But I know from past experience, the manuscript will be stronger if I approach it with a plan.
And so I plan. (More info on what that looks like next week.)
What about you? What stage are you at in your writing? What are you working on? Are you a plotter or a pantser (or somewhere in between – a plantser?)? Let me know in the comments…