All The Ideas

First, I would just like to say, I'm sorry I'm a day late on my blog.  Yesterday was a not great day.  It was stressful at work, I had no sleep because my mom was admitted to the hospital and the doctors didn't know what was wrong, and I editing on my break really didn't go well

Anyway, the point of the matter is that I made it through the day, but the concept of putting up a blog made me want to cry a little bit, so I decided that I would just wait until today.  Hence, a blog post on Thursday!

Lately it seems like I've been completely focused on Pandora, and the Jayne Pheare series.  This isn't a bad thing.  I have other projects I'm working on, so I don't want to be too wrapped up in it, but on the whole I would say that being focused definitely has more benefits than drawbacks.

I'm currently editing Pandora (Book 1) and planning Malice (Book 2).  Along with that comes unexpected surprises.  Like ideas for book 4 (it has a name, can't remember it right now.)  I've had ideas for book 3 running through my head since I started the series, but to suddenly be hit with ideas for book 4 was a new experience, and one that has me excited.  It means that I'm really starting to take this series seriously.  I'm starting to see where it's going, and that means that I might actually see this one through!  While I've completed books before, I've never completed a series, but I have hope now!

When I start a new series, I can usually see the first book pretty clearly (hopefully, since I'm planning or writing it) and the rest just seems to be shrouded in fog.  I have vague glimpses of a light shining through, giving me a general idea of where I want the books to go, but there are no details to accompany it.

Now that I'm getting further and further in to the series, that fog is beginning to lift.  I'm starting to see how some of the things that I've known are going to happen will come about.  I can see the motivations that I knew must be there but didn't really understand.  And while I can't see the exact ending, I'm starting to get hints of how things are going to turn out, and that makes me so excited.

Not all of my characters have happy endings, of course.  I have at least four characters who die (I hate the idea just as much as you guys, but sometimes it just has to be done).  And I know that I'm going to have a YA spin off that features kids that don't even exist yet in the book (like, not even the possibility...).  But the closer I get to these things happening, the more I know that it was the right call, even if the way it happens wasn't what I originally thought.

So now I anxiously want to start writing a YA series that I can't start until (at the very least) book 4, but which I probably actually can't put out until after the series is done.  I desperately want to plan book 3, but can't until I'm done Malice, and all I think about are these characters, which can be a problem when I'm getting a critique about a different book.

For now, though, I'm just going to do what my brain tells me to, which is to work on the Jayne Pheare series.  I'm going to get it done for January, and then I'm going to get it published.

Have you ever gotten caught up in a book?

Hello Aliens. Please, Steal My Socks. (Day 8)

Last night I started on the next novel I had planned out for this November (I didn't get very far, but that's another blog post). Because today is the first day I get to concentrate solely on this novel, I thought I would tell you guys all about it, and where the idea came from.

In 2010 I took part in my first every NaNoWriMo, and it was a success! With 150k words under my belt, I was feeling on top of the world when I walked in to the TGIO party. I had my three novels tucked away in my bag, and I sat down with some new friends I had just made that month.

Giddy with success, and excited about what was to come afterwards, we started talking about the next NaNo.

We came up with all sorts of ideas for books, but the one that stuck with me (The one that I claimed I was going to write the next year) was an idea about a book that explained how one socks inevitably goes missing in the dryer. I said that, obviously, aliens ate the socks, and that needed to be a book.

Obviously I didn't write that book in 2011. First of all, I had forgotten about it, second, I just didn't find it plausible to actually become a book.

This year, though, when I sat down to pick out the ideas I was going to use for NaNo, that idea stuck out to me. I stared at it for a while, wondering what I could possibly do with a story like that, rejected the very thought that it could be turned in to a novel, and then finally gave in and sat down to start planning.

What I ended up with was no where near to the idea I had originally started with (which does tend to happen with most of my story ideas, honestly.)

My main character is a ten year old by the name of Tommy Thompson (yes, it did take me a while to think of the name, and yes I did pick it because of how memorable it is). In the very first chapter his world is changed forever when he finds an alien stealing a sock out of the dryer.

The alien tries to kidnap him, but when Tommy evades him, he goes after Tommy's half-sister instead. He trieds to tell his mom, but she doesnt believe him. When his friend Felicia says they need to go after Emily themselves.

The story follows them as they go on an adventure up to the mother ship, find countless other kids the aliens have stolen to bring to their home planet and serve them and begin searching for the little sister Tommy never thought he wanted.

As you may have noticed, it's a Middle Grade novel. I've never written anything like it before, and I am a little worried about having such a young main character. I think I've already made some mistakes with word choice, but that's editable. Plus, I started the story in third, but I really do think I need to change it to first.

Other than that, though, I'm excited to see what comes of this idea that I jokingly called a novel two years ago. Who knows, this could be the novel that puts me on the map as an author!

Do you have any story ideas that you're not sure would work as a novel? What are you currently writing about?

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Daily Word Count: 4,722

Total Word Count: 75,600