A creative brain can be a tough beast to deal with when it’s constantly spewing out book ideas when my backlog is in double digits. Everything on my website is either completed or a work in progress.
Here’s the full breakdown:
Melusine’s Endgame:
Ruby Memory, Sapphire Reunion, Pearl Intrigue, Obsidian Woods, Ivory Ice, Emerald Court, Amethyst Mirror, Diamond Restoration, Garnet’s Price, Alexandrite Pledge, Citrine Flame, and Crystal Throne. Of those, Ruby Memory is about 80% complete. All of the other ones have a complete mental outline in my brain. It’s a (not-so-simple) matter of finding the time to commit all of them to screen.
Legacy of the Worm Trilogy:
Worm Rising is done. Worm Evolved is roughly 20% complete. Worm Sundered…I honestly don’t know about that one. I started that in high school, and never intended it to be a part of a series. However, as Worm Rising evolved in my mind, the whole thing morphed into a trilogy. Each book is thematically a bit different, being horror, science fiction, and fantasy, respectively. Worm Sundered needs heavy revision, primarily to reflect my growth as a writer. There are…definite stylistic differences between seventeen year old me and the current version.
Silverside is roughly 25% complete.
Carolina Gold: This one is mentally outlined. It will be set in Colonial South Carolina, and will involve debts, pirates, and relationships that are not what they seem.
Dark Mirror: My brain decided to throw this one at me when I was driving up to Chicago. Think a dark, gritty, magic-free retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
Elmhollow Lodge: Gothic horror novel set in the late Victorian or early Edwardian era. I think this is the one I will start working on when I finish Ruby Memory…it’s showing signs that it’s going to get intrusive.
Shadow of Fire: Set in the last days of the Roman town of Herculaneum, days before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Dungeons and Dragons campaign story: Obviously would have to rework this so I don’t get in trouble with WotC, but this one started as a diary of sorts for the last Dungeons and Dragons campaign I played in when I was that club sponsor. I don’t think the Dungeon Master intended it to be quite that epic, but that’s how it ended up. This is also the same campaign where I made the Dungeon Master cry on two occasions: one where I used physics calculations to convert the Wall of Stone spell from vertical to horizontal, and the other was when I used the Summon Animal spell to drop a whole herd of hadrosaurs on some enemy pirate ships. Really, Richard, you should have at least seen that one coming.
There’s a couple of other projects that might rear their heads at some point. I am very loosely considering making Queen’s Night a trilogy. If I do that, I will basically be working backwards. Queen’s Night is set in modern times, where the other two will be set in post-Roman Britain and Tudor era England. The more I worked on Queen’s Night, the more I want to expand on the stories of the main characters. The post-Roman one would center on the main female, where the Tudor one would center on the male. I’m still not entirely sure my mind wants to commit to this, so these two are on the (very) back burner for now.
That’s a total of twenty-two active or semi-active projects in my head. So, I’m thinking I’ve got a few options.
Option 1: Pray that I make enough money on these projects so I can write full time, and MAYBE get all of these books out of my system before the Apocalypse hits.
Option 2: Hope that the Universe decides to take the Sarah Winchester approach with me and not allow me to shed my meat suit until all of these are done.
Option 3: Some poor soul is going to be treated to Patience Worth 2.0, and that’s not going to be fun for anyone.
Well, except maybe me.