One Heart, Many Works in Progress

My computer desktop has quite a few different folders, all lined up in neat little rows with the tentative titles of my works in progress. With all these different stories, I used to feel a little guilty whenever I shifted my attention from one to another, as though I were somehow being unfaithful. But I’ve come to realize it isn’t cheating at all. It’s motherhood.

When you have your first child, you love them unconditionally. They are your sun and your moon. Your entire life revolves around them, and you cannot imagine loving anyone else with the same intensity. And then you have another child, and it astonishes you the way your heart expands. You love them differently yet just as fiercely. Then a third arrives (and if you are me, a fourth and a fifth), each one unique and glorious. They make you laugh and cry; they challenge you and delight you; they are wholly themselves, and you love them for exactly that.

And now, as I’ve written more, I’ve discovered that this is exactly how it feels with my books.

When I was writing A Rose for Braemore, I couldn’t imagine focusing on anything else until that story became tangible in my hands. But now I have several “children” at once. While A Rose for Braemore is ready to be queried, another finished manuscript is waiting for its first revision, a fully outlined project sits at about twenty five percent drafted, a love triangle story is completely sketched out, and one I’m especially excited about follows a Victorian couple married nearly twenty years—parents to eight children, who are unwittingly drawn into an espionage adventure that rekindles their love.

All of these stories live in the same universe, by the way. They can be read as standalones, but they’re far more fun together. Think of the interconnected worlds of Sarah Eden or Sally Britton. The difference is that mine span nearly fifty years, allowing readers to see characters at different stages of their lives.

And then there’s the newest idea tugging at my sleeve and this one is in a completely different genre from my historical romances. It’s a post-apocalyptic tale about a futuristic Viking princess and the prince of a dying alien race, the Avicantae. Together they must unite their people, even as she uncovers a plot to eradicate humanity and a returning alien threat prepares to finish what it began. It’s a Romantasy and utterly unlike anything else I’m writing, and I love it just as much.

That’s the awesome thing about working on multiple projects. I’ve discovered that I love them all for different reasons, yet with the same wholehearted devotion. Just like my children, my heart has simply grown to hold them. And just like my children, they go through phases where they demand my attention and it gets tricky when several of them are in different stages at once. It becomes a constant juggling act of who needs what.

But one thing I’ve learned in parenting and writing is that it’s always an adventure you can never fully prepare for, no matter how many self help books you read or how much well meaning advice you receive. In the end, it’s a journey you navigate with intuition and a few precious hours of sleep knowing you’ll stumble, knowing you’ll fail them sometimes, but trusting that, with enough love and persistence, they’ll grow into something beautiful and may one day even change the world.