Contemplating the queue
Sep. 28th, 2008 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesThis is me thinking aloud, and nobody gets a vote except me, my editor, and my publisher. I *could* just lock the post down to the crit group, or even completely private, if you get too excitable. :-)
So, poking at the stack, and thinking about some pragmatic issues:
It is useful in the romance genre to have at least one release per year and ideally two, to keep up name recognition. I've only had one release this year, and I've done no pro writing since I started the new job. That's because the new job sucks all my mental energy (and has also been responsible for a bad bout of RSI that meant that writing would have been tricky for 3 or 4 weeks anyway). I'm getting to the point where I could start writing again, but it's going to be significantly slower than before. So something that is relatively easy to write is better than something that is going to take a lot of effort just in getting into the characters and world. And other things being equal, something on the shorter side is better than something on the longer side.
I'm primarily an sf/fantasy writer at the long length, although my shorts are mostly contemporary and I now have a contemporary novel series. It would be better to alternate genres to keep things fresh, and also to keep up name recognition with readers who follow only contemporary or only sf&f.
Series can be good, but you can also get reader burn-out -- if they didn't like the first book, they won't buy the second, even if they'd be willing to give a completely different book a chance.
I'd rather stick with my usual publisher for the next book, to save all the stress of dealing with A New Publisher.
I've got several pieces I could pick up and start working on relatively easily:
Lord and Master 3: I'm mentally still in that universe, so it's probably going to be a lot easier from that point of view than anything else I have. I know what I want to do with it, I could sketch an outline right now, I have several key scenes already plotted out in some detail in my mind. But it's the third in a series, which means it will pick up all the readers who loved the first two (good) but won't pick up many new readers (bad). It's contemporary, when ideally I'd have an sf book out next. And some of the subject matter could be a bit touchy.
Taxman: Urban fantasy romance about a modern Londoner encountering a fairy. I have 15 kwords already, I have a good idea of where I want to go with it, although it's not as solid as L&M3, and if the L&M characters weren't pestering me with another piece of their story it's the one that I'd *want* to work on next. However, it may not be steamy enough for LI, while being too steamy for a mainstream sf publisher. It's also one where I could conceivably back out at this point, rewrite it as m/f, and try submitting it to a New York publisher, either sf&f *or* romance, because it's sufficiently cross-genre that it could be slanted either way.
The hellhound story: science fantasy romance rather obviously influenced by Andre Norton, only way more explicit than anything Norton ever wrote. There are a couple of chapters of this one already, I have a good idea of the general universe, and some ideas on the plot. But the plot isn't as solidly developed as Taxman, and it will probably take longer to write.
Some more that fall under the heading of "I have the first 2 or 3 chapters, the basic universe concept, and *some* plot bits but not all of it":
Sufficiently Advanced Magic: 13,000 word novelette that everyone who's seen it says is the first 13 kwords of a novel, and I should be writing the rest of it. Except I wrote it nearly a decade ago, and it'll take a while to get back into it.
The "simpler better life planet gone bad" novel -- an older piece that got dropped when I was distracted by an even shinier idea. I still like it and want to go back to it at some point.
Lucky Dip: 10k contemporary May-December, written as a short for an anthology call (and not submitted because it was too long), but with obvious potential for more material, some of which I have in my head. Except that much of the ground it would cover I ended up doing when I wrote L&M.
And I do have some ideas that I want to work on eventually, but there isn't any existing text at all. Dolphin Dreams sequel for starters. Ditto a piece about the world of the cat people from First Footer.
And of course I could come up with something completely new. In fact, what I could really do with at this point is an idea that will turn into a 20-30 kword story without too much effort. I should probably trawl the short story calls for submissions at ERA, as trying to write a short story for an anthology generally produces something novelette or novella length. :-)
Eh. Looking at that, it looks as if the best option is L&M3, then something else I can definitely submit to Loose Id, to give me breathing space, and then work on Taxman and worry about what to do with it once I've finished the draft.
So, poking at the stack, and thinking about some pragmatic issues:
It is useful in the romance genre to have at least one release per year and ideally two, to keep up name recognition. I've only had one release this year, and I've done no pro writing since I started the new job. That's because the new job sucks all my mental energy (and has also been responsible for a bad bout of RSI that meant that writing would have been tricky for 3 or 4 weeks anyway). I'm getting to the point where I could start writing again, but it's going to be significantly slower than before. So something that is relatively easy to write is better than something that is going to take a lot of effort just in getting into the characters and world. And other things being equal, something on the shorter side is better than something on the longer side.
I'm primarily an sf/fantasy writer at the long length, although my shorts are mostly contemporary and I now have a contemporary novel series. It would be better to alternate genres to keep things fresh, and also to keep up name recognition with readers who follow only contemporary or only sf&f.
Series can be good, but you can also get reader burn-out -- if they didn't like the first book, they won't buy the second, even if they'd be willing to give a completely different book a chance.
I'd rather stick with my usual publisher for the next book, to save all the stress of dealing with A New Publisher.
I've got several pieces I could pick up and start working on relatively easily:
Lord and Master 3: I'm mentally still in that universe, so it's probably going to be a lot easier from that point of view than anything else I have. I know what I want to do with it, I could sketch an outline right now, I have several key scenes already plotted out in some detail in my mind. But it's the third in a series, which means it will pick up all the readers who loved the first two (good) but won't pick up many new readers (bad). It's contemporary, when ideally I'd have an sf book out next. And some of the subject matter could be a bit touchy.
Taxman: Urban fantasy romance about a modern Londoner encountering a fairy. I have 15 kwords already, I have a good idea of where I want to go with it, although it's not as solid as L&M3, and if the L&M characters weren't pestering me with another piece of their story it's the one that I'd *want* to work on next. However, it may not be steamy enough for LI, while being too steamy for a mainstream sf publisher. It's also one where I could conceivably back out at this point, rewrite it as m/f, and try submitting it to a New York publisher, either sf&f *or* romance, because it's sufficiently cross-genre that it could be slanted either way.
The hellhound story: science fantasy romance rather obviously influenced by Andre Norton, only way more explicit than anything Norton ever wrote. There are a couple of chapters of this one already, I have a good idea of the general universe, and some ideas on the plot. But the plot isn't as solidly developed as Taxman, and it will probably take longer to write.
Some more that fall under the heading of "I have the first 2 or 3 chapters, the basic universe concept, and *some* plot bits but not all of it":
Sufficiently Advanced Magic: 13,000 word novelette that everyone who's seen it says is the first 13 kwords of a novel, and I should be writing the rest of it. Except I wrote it nearly a decade ago, and it'll take a while to get back into it.
The "simpler better life planet gone bad" novel -- an older piece that got dropped when I was distracted by an even shinier idea. I still like it and want to go back to it at some point.
Lucky Dip: 10k contemporary May-December, written as a short for an anthology call (and not submitted because it was too long), but with obvious potential for more material, some of which I have in my head. Except that much of the ground it would cover I ended up doing when I wrote L&M.
And I do have some ideas that I want to work on eventually, but there isn't any existing text at all. Dolphin Dreams sequel for starters. Ditto a piece about the world of the cat people from First Footer.
And of course I could come up with something completely new. In fact, what I could really do with at this point is an idea that will turn into a 20-30 kword story without too much effort. I should probably trawl the short story calls for submissions at ERA, as trying to write a short story for an anthology generally produces something novelette or novella length. :-)
Eh. Looking at that, it looks as if the best option is L&M3, then something else I can definitely submit to Loose Id, to give me breathing space, and then work on Taxman and worry about what to do with it once I've finished the draft.