So Many Worlds In the Universe of My Mind

This weekend I realized I have moved on from Living Dead Boy. I didn't experience the gut-wrenching postpartum blues I did with As The World Dies or the day of mourning I had with Pretty When She Dies. I didn't finish the book and sit worrying about the characters or missing them. I really LOVE this book, but I realized it has never really been my story. It was written for Dr. Pus and my nephew, Brandon. This is their story from the first line to the very end. I wrote it for them and it was my gift to two people I care deeply about.

I suppose it helps that I had to close down that world fairly swiftly to move onto writing the synopsis for The Vengeance of the Vampire Bride. That probably helped with the "disconnect."

The way I define my writing process is as follows. I have all these little "worlds" swirling around in my head. Each one is complete with its story, characters, and the specific rules of that "altverse." When I write a story, I "open" that world and concentrate on it as I write. I try to keep only one world open at a time so I can concentrate solely on that one story and not scatter my attention. When I have more than one world open, I tend to get writer's block because it is just too much information coming down the pike.

Hell, I even visualize the process in my mind to make it easier to shift to the next story. I imagine myself standing on a cliff facing a beautiful nebula filled with all these worlds rotating slowly. I catch one, open it, and concentrate on that story. When I finish, I close it, and move on to the next one.

I have three of those worlds orbiting around me, rich and full of life, ready to be born, anxious to be written. These are the novel ideas I am writing a synopsis for to submit to my agent. I have even written a few chapters for each one. I have a few more worlds drifting nearby that I could easily snatch up and write next.

So many stories...so little time.

Yesterday I started working on the new synopsis and slowly the world the story inhabits opened up. I fell asleep last night with the characters in my mind, talking to each other. I woke up this morning thinking about them. I hope I can transfer their story effectively into the synopsis.

In the last two weeks, I have had fans write to me about how anxiously they are looking forward to the sequels to my two vampire novels and/or are hoping for more stories from the fort. I understand their impatience to read more about these worlds, but I still have a full time job and for now I have to do the best I can with the time available to write.

I can only promise that I will continue to write and do my very best to write stories my readers will love.