The book is finished. The publisher has accepted it. The contract is signed. What does a writer do next?
Start another project, of course! Truthfully, I have already started another project, several months ago. I like to have writing work in different stages of development. While I was doing final editing and polishing of Jewels in Time, the young adult novel that is in the publishing process now, I started brainstorming the next Nara Blake mystery. I have written about 25,000 words, and am organizing the plot and doing research on history and culture, since this will be set in Spain.
So my mind is in two worlds: the magic world and thirteenth century England for Jewels in Time, and present day (and a bit of the 1930s) for the Nara book, working title is Hidden in Plain Sight.
Besides the actual projects, I constantly play around with characters and scenarios in my head. Most of them stay there, and never even make it to paper. It’s my grown-up version of playing pretend. I now longer have my brothers and sister to boss around in my imaginary games like I did growing up on the farm in Illinois, but I still make up stories just for the fun of it.
View of the Pyrenees in Spain, where the next Nara novel will take place.