Interim Step Ten: Picking The Next Project

How To Decide What To Write Next

Back in Interim Step Eight: What To Do While You’re Waiting, I gave a very specific bit of advice: Don’t wait to get started on your next project! Since I’m sure you all took this advice, I thought I’d go into more detail on how I choose what to write next, what that project is, and why I always encourage people to learn the fine skill of creative juggling.

Getting going on the next project is vital for a number of reasons, and this holds true whether you’re on submission to agents, to publishers, or when your book is finished and your publisher is getting ready to start editorial. At the very least, you need to be thinking… what’s next? Since you’ve already moved through the first few steps we discussed at the beginning of this series, working on your concept, your outline, your research, I’m assuming you’ve moved rapidly through those steps and are already writing the next book.

Maybe you haven’t. Maybe you’re still trying to decide what's next? Well, with luck, this will help.

I started the actual writing of the next book between steps eleven and twelve, while I was waiting for my copyedit. I had met with my editor at a conference, and since LAST SEEN was the final book on my contract, we needed to discuss what came next. As I am very happy with my team and was very much interested in doing another deal with them, I was excited to talk story ideas. We talked about continuing on a particular story, but I had another idea floating around that felt like it would be a good next step, and I pitched it to her. She said, “Yes, please,” immediately, and that was that. I knew what I was working on next. We call it The Airplane Book in-house, though it is now officially known as YOU KNOW WHY. It will come out in 2026, and because I didn’t wait to start, I am well into the writing of it.

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