Wined, Dined, and Signed

So after a couple weeks I’ve had to sign a few books while receiving a lot of congratulations from a number of people. It’s been a great experience for several reasons, the primary one is because it’s something I’ve accomplished basically on my own. And though others have encouraged me in my writing or pushed me to do things, it’s been me who’s sat in front of my computer for hours, days, weeks, months, and years getting my ideas onto paper. Because of that, because of the time I’ve spent fulfilling a dream, I appreciate signing every book so much more, especially since it’s my first book to be published. Maybe after I’ve a dozen books published it may not mean the same, but for now I love signing every one of them put in front of me. Along the same lines, I appreciate the second ‘launch’ party thrown by those in my home-away-from-home the same as the first one. It was a bash I’ll never forget.

Since then (since I’ve edited and gotten contracts for the next two books, since I’ve had 2 launch parties which were both awesome, and since I’ve signed my first book) I know I have to get back to writing. So again I’ve opened the pages to Burden and started dreaming of what should happen next (yes dreaming). It’s kind of my way of picturing what needs to happen next before I start putting words to paper. In those dreams, however, I’ve come up with several ideas for other books which I’m also writing down for possible future considerations. There is also the one comment I received as soon as I met a friend which was ‘You should do a whole book just on Opus’ (from Jeremiah Stone). My answer to that was ‘I’m already working on it, want to read the beginning?’ His answer was sure, then after reading it cool! And seriously, it’s just a page of writing, the beginnings of the opening scene. And I have to admit it’s pretty awesome.

Since then I’ve come up with ideas for a book having something to do with a special group of assassins and another which takes place in the future concerning planetary genocide by an alien creature. I’ve also had ideas concerning something in between those two ideas and another concerning the zombie apocalypse. Of course all of this is distracting me from Burden, but it’s all good because the juices are flowing again. And concerning Burden, I thought I was stuck in some sort of rut, but I’ve worked through that blockage and am back on a writing spree.

Now taking a step back for all that, I have to think of one other thing. Besides Jeremiah Stone and the next two books I already have contracts for, I still have twelve other books I’ve written. That’s a lot of writing yet to be published so I have time to really concentrate on where my writing should go next. I hope understanding that really encourages me to put out a better product.