One thing that’s helping in my current idea explosion is that only two of these projects competing for mental attention involve actual characters, and in both those cases, I’ve already developed those characters and written an entire book with them, so the characters aren’t being particularly pushy about telling me their stories.

With the other idea, it’s more about the world right now and the kinds of stories that might take place in it. I have roles that will need to be filled, but they aren’t yet actual characters. I just have one real character telling me stuff about himself and demanding attention. The weird thing is that he’s mostly a supporting character until he eventually gets his own book. My plan for this series is that it’s mostly about the world, with loosely interconnected stories taking place in that world. You can jump into the series at any point and still understand that book, but there are crossovers and things woven in and out, so the more of the books you’ve read, the more you’ll get out of them. I had in mind a character who would appear in a usually minor role in all the books and be someone kind of intriguing, so you’d want him to get his own book, and then we finally do get his book and learn who he really is and what he’s really been up to.

Well, he’s started telling me all that. I guess it will help if I know the details before he makes his first appearance.

I can deal with worlds and stories trying to flesh themselves out in my head and with plot events and scenes coming to mind. It’s the characters who get distracting when they start telling me about themselves and I hear their voices in my head. Owen was one of those characters. He took over my brain as soon as I started writing the first book in the series, and I knew it was time to wrap up the series when he left me alone at the end of the last book.

I won’t even be ready to start writing this other series until maybe the fall, so it may get annoying having this guy leaning over my shoulder, giving me hints. It did help to write out what I know about him so far. I haven’t come up with anything new about him since then.

But since it’s a good cold, rainy, dark, gloomy day (my kind of weather, as long as I’m snug at home), I may do a movie afternoon of movies that might inspire me, and that means I’ll probably get new ideas.