Read Around the Rainbow: Deciding What to Write Next

Read Around the Rainbow is a blogging project featuring yours truly, A.L. Lester, Ofelia Gränd, Holly Day, K.L. Noone, Amy Spector, Addison Albright, Fiona Glass, Lilian Francis, and Ellie Thomas. Every month, we pick a topic and then we blog about it. Check the other blog posts by clicking the RAtR widget in the sidebar, or the links at the bottom of this post.

The September RAtR topic is Deciding What to Write Next.

I’m not one of those writers who have a gazillion plot bunnies fighting for my attention at all times; on the contrary, I have one idea in my head at the time, and when I’ve finished one project, I often feel that it was my last book. It’s been fun, being an author, but this is it. I’ve got nothing. Clearly, it’s all in my head, considering how many books I’ve published since I started out in 2017 and I always get over the feeling, but it’s really real for a few days.

Alas, I’m also not someone who writes series; from a what do I write next standpoint I figure it would be great. It sounds easy; after the first book in the series, you write the second. Easy peasy, right? Well, I’m sure it’s not easy, but at least you’ll know what to write after you’re done with your current WIP.

So how do I decide what to write next?

Submission calls! Submission calls is the answer, submission calls are my savior, my knight in shining armor, and I have no idea what would happen to me and my writing without them.

My publisher JMS Books always has a bunch of themed submission calls, some open for the public (check them out here), some in-house submission calls, available only for authors already published by them. When JMS Books send out the email with new submission calls, I jump on it like it was a book written by my favorite author.

Some of them speak to me immediately (I’m looking at you, Silver Foxes), some I dismiss without a second glance (Halloween is not my thing), and some of them grow on me the more I think about them. Like shared interests.

My next story is going to be for the shared interests submission call, and the idea is knocking around in my head, begging for my attention, and I want nothing more than to give in to it…I just need to find some free time first (stupid Day Job!).

So my next story is going to be about two guys (not named Tycho and Dorian like I first erroneously thought) whose shared interest is gazing at the stars and moon and other celestial phenomena like comets or auroras. And we’re not talking astronomers or scientists; just two regular guys with binoculars who are in awe of the beauty of a huge, peach-colored full moon on a lovely September evening.

(That last thing about the moon might have been me, when we were traveling back from meeting family last weekend and the most gorgeous waxing gibbous moon guided us home. It was almost translucent and a beautiful pale peach color, and I stared at it for the entire car trip with hearts in my eyes).

So my answer to this month’s question how do I decide what to write next, is submission calls!