When the Magic Just Ain't There

have been working with many aspects of a new novel and sharing my thoughts and ideas with you here on Booking the Middle Ages for a couple months at least. As you know it has been a rocky road, and I think I know why now, thanks to a comment my husband made this weekend. he told me that he noticed how happy I was while I was working on An Involuntary King, and how of late I seem more discouraged and dissatisfied I am most of the time now. he is right. The joy in writing has become a chore.

Does this mean I only have one book in me or only one set of characters? I don't think so. Other writers have told me to relax and not force it, the spark of joy will come along in its own time. My Capricorn nature makes me grumble, "But what about all that research I did? I don't want to throw it away." But nothing like research is ever thrown away! It's still there, waiting to be useful, or at least enriching my life with its content.

I've been thinking about writing and the ton of ideas that jump into focus constantly for me. I have decided to play with as many or all I want for a time and see which radiates joy or at the very least is fun as heck. Here are some of the projects I have bouncing around in my brain.

1. Death in East Wellow and the other plots I have come up with starring Kerrick Trevelyan and taking place in Anglo Saxon Winchester in the late tenth century. This is the book that has been stymieing me, but it need not go away... just gestate for a while.

2. Random Acts first draft is all but done, a Napoleonic era erotic romance with the main characters a man named Jack Random. I have wanted to write something erotic about a fellow named Jack Random since I was in college.. and all I will say is that it should be obvious I am not old enough to have been in college during the Victorian period...

3. I would love to write more about my characters from An Involuntary King. I could write a sequel about "what happened next" or turn my attention to other characters. I could take Elerde into his attempt to get into a battle so fierce he could not survive. I could write the origin stories of Shannon and Rory. I could even write about O'Donnell and MacDhui and how they met and how they became involved.

4. I am starting a Fantasy Writing class by Rob Parnell and using a character I have played with on Ghostletters. She is a spubky Seattle police officer who finds herself able to turn into a lioness. This modern fantasy would fit right in with the current popularity of books in that genre.

5. Apparently the one subgenre of historical fiction that is doing well is young adult. I could try my hand at that, taking people and events from the middle ages and putting late teen characters into the middle of them.

6. Erastes passed on a call for submissions for short novels some time ago, which I decided to let pass me by, but have since thought about and found a fascination with. It was supposed to be a story of gay people in the military, and my plot involved two men, one English and one French, who come together at the Battle of Waterloo.

So what shall I do? How about everything? It took me 35 years to get An Involuntary King into novel form. Why stress about another few months for the second book?

And besides the above I have some ideas I won't share, because they are so good you will steal them! ;)