On Growing A Thought Garden

I have finished my second book! Finished it, edited it four times, gotten beta feedback, edited some more, and gosh damn it, SUBMITTED IT. 

But, there was a time when I was so desperately in love with my first novel that I couldn't imagine ever writing about different characters. I was convinced I would write multiple books in that series (duh, a trilogy, the holy trilogy, as all YA writers do, uhh, write right?).

But, there was also a problem back then. It was like my first love. Everything, I mean everything had to be crammed into it. Every idea, every plan, every thought. I kept adding and adding until the novel looked like one of those houses you see that has had 10-too-many additions and now looks absurd.

No longer.

Now, I have about 10 ideas for 10 different books, and I have learned to keep them that way. Because I learned while writing my second book that there will always be more books. I will never be done. There will always be new ideas, more ideas, different ideas, and there will always be a place to put them, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be here, now, this book, this chapter.

And it is freeing. So damn freeing. Because instead of stressing out about how to fit every darn idea into my current book, I have grown a garden of new ideas in the background. Phone notes and email drafts and scribbles in my field notes journal. Ideas for different things, unrelated things, some of which will be added to some book - the right book - some day, and some of which can stand on their own.

Hallelujah. That's a lesson I'm glad to have learned.

Now, on to the slow, fiery death that is the submission process. You can hear me chanting: I am confident in my work. I am confident in my work. I am confident in my work.