What’s Next? A Museum of Possibilities…

My Spring 2012 novel EYE OF THE STORM is on its way to copy edits.

Copy edit notes for REAL REVISION: AUTHORS’ STRATEGIES TO SHARE WITH STUDENT WRITERS are on a UPS truck somewhere, heading back to Stenhouse for the book’s release this May.

My mail from readers is answered. The email in-box is empty.

And my fingers are twitchy.

Does anyone else feel this way when it’s time to start a new project? 

Part of me wants to get on with it, to meet the new characters and get lost in the new setting.  But part of me also loves the feeling of not knowing. It reminds me of this photo I saw a while back…


from http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/02/03/the-museum-of-possibilities/

It’s Montreal’s "Museum of Possibilities," a one-day installation last spring that invited visitors to share their ideas for the Quartier des Spectacles public space by writing them on slips of paper and attaching them to colorful balloons.  Then other visitors could vote on them by putting stickers on their favorite. Lovely, no? In so many ways…

But of course, at some point, the balloon people had to choose one plan or there would never be anything in that public space. And at some point soon, I need to decide on a new book project. There are three that are looking particularly shiny, so I’ve sent those to my editor. I’ll let you know if she puts her sticker on one.

For now, though, I’m enjoying the bright rising maybes, the rainbow of ideas, and this feeling that that next book could be anything…anything at all.