Whimsical in the Brainbox

Why is it that when I’m in that last hard push to get a book in on deadline, I get ambushed by ideas for other books?  That never happens when I’m in the planning stages of a book, or when I’m rolling up my sleeves and taking a swing at those first few chapters.  It never happens when I’m in the kill-me-now slog of the middle of the book either.

Maybe it’s the sort of death-grip focus I have right now on MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY.  MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY is the second-to-last book in the series, and I am not only sweeping up a metric ton of plot bits, I am also lining everything up for that last rush into the final book.  Maybe that kind of focus set off the “Oh-mi-gawd! Make ideas! More idea! More stuffs!  More boooks!” reaction in my brainbox and now I’m sort of leaking ideas.

I’ve come up with two YA novel concepts, one urban fantasy series and have notes for a dozen other “maybe” projects in just the last couple weeks. And these aren’t just, “hey, that’s kind of a cool idea” sorts of ideas.  These are, “OMG.  I wanna write that right now!”

And attached to every one of those ideas is a guarantee–sort of like those inspector stickers you find on clothing–that assures me the ideas are shiny and lovely and would be the easiest books I’ve ever written and everyone would love them! LOVE-LOVE with a burning loveness.

Right.

So, thank you brainbox for slipping your lid and letting so many cool ideas out to rampage through my thoughts.  Yes, they are shiny and lovely, and I am sure they would be a breeze to write.  I have them safely noted, and the details are simmering.  But for today, do you suppose we can just get back to finishing MAGIC WITHOUT MERCY?  Because, you know, it is full of cool stuff, and some really neat people I’ve sort of fallen in love with are in a bunch of trouble right now and we need to get them out of it somehow….