List of Possible Books

Not long ago, a pub­lish­er with whom I have hap­pi­ly worked asked me to sub­mit a list of ideas for future books I might write. I was glad to sup­ply such a cat­a­log, which con­sist­ed of six work­ing tiles along with a very brief syn­op­sis of each of the plots. Most of these ideas I had car­ried for some time in the file cab­i­net of my mind. Only one was a brand-new notion, cre­at­ed for the occasion.

Mind, it did not mean the pub­lish­er would actu­al­ly take any of these ideas, but I was hop­ing so. Indeed, I append­ed my list with the (jok­ing) note that “mul­ti­ple book con­tracts would be acceptable.”

Now it is a com­mon place in my world of writ­ing that when you get an idea and decide to ful­ly expand the idea into a book, you should real­ly want to work on that sto­ry. After all, you are going to spend at least a year (maybe more) full-time, day after day, liv­ing with the char­ac­ters and plot. That is, you under­take to inhab­it anoth­er world for a very long time. And my way of work­ing is I don’t like to talk about what I am writ­ing. I think, for myself, that dilutes the ener­gy. I pret­ty much work in iso­la­tion. Still, if you like what you are writ­ing, you tend to write a bet­ter book.

Trust me, it’s no fun work­ing on a sto­ry that you don’t like. It has hap­pened a cou­ple of times, books signed up that seem to be a good fit, but then turned out to be not so good.

The few times this has hap­pened, to be hon­est, I got going with the book, and after a while, my mood and lik­ing for the book were con­sid­er­ably enhanced. In oth­er words, I have nev­er pub­lished a book I didn’t believe was good.

That said, I have put a few man­u­scripts aside and quite for­got­ten them. My judg­ment. No loss for the read­er or me. They were not good. I tru­ly threw the man­u­script away.

Now, regard­ing that list of pos­si­ble books, they were all ideas I thought I could enjoy writ­ing. To be sure, some I liked more than oth­ers. “What if,” I asked myself, “they pre­fer the one I like least?” Oh, well.

Putting that aside, I had a notion as to which one the pub­lish­er might find most attrac­tive. It turns out I was right. They liked the new notion. It will be the most challenging.

But even then, I was asked to recon­sid­er the idea and tweak it slight­ly to meet what the pub­lish­er thinks might make the book more like­ly a win­ner. If I agreed to that, would I write a much more exten­sive syn­op­sis of what the book’s plot would be?

Now this is dif­fer­ent for me. I’m much more of an intu­itive writer; that is, I grab an idea and invent as I go along, enjoy­ing noth­ing more than being sur­prised myself.

In my ear­ly writ­ing days, I com­posed out­lines. Not for a long time. Until now. Because that is what I have done, I have laid out a full out­line of the sto­ry idea and sub­mit­ted that.

Mind, I still don’t know if it will be accepted.

So, stay tuned, if the pub­lish­er does accept the idea, and I go ahead and sign a con­tract, and start work­ing, I’ll tell you all about it (right here) only after the cou­ple of years it will take me to write the book.

All you’ll hear from me until then is the click of my com­put­er keys.

I hope I enjoy it. So you can.