Don’t you hate it when it happens?
Here I am, with tons of stuff to do, and two huge ideas that push on my brain to get to my fingers and through my fingers and the keyboard on a page and then get printed, and published, and read.

Two ideas.
Two whole worlds.
Two potential new series.
Heroes, or at least a decent substitute for heroes, already there, ready to have a go at whatever I will throw at them.
So now what?

Here’s what…

First: I’ll take two days off.
I have other things to write, I have places to be, people to see. I’ll let the ideas simmer on a low fire, and then I will

A . Start writing the fastest one, focusing on the fun of writing a freewheeling action adventure.
I mean I will put to paper – or digital paper – the idea that requires less work, less research, less bother: action, straightforward adventure, a muscular but smart hero, evil and creepy bad guys. A world of danger. Beautiful women. Monsters. Cavemen. Volcanoes.
Atlantis. Lemuria.
Let’s put all those years spent studying paleontology to work.
First in a series? You bet.
This will be the 12.000-words novelette for my Patrons, as promised.
It will be like taking a vacation.

B . I’ll start pulling resources to develop the second idea. That is big and complicated and lots of fun and swordplay and tongue-in-cheek swashbuckling action, and already has a title as a series, it being Tales from the Loop.
And because time is short and I have work to do, I’ll start using my research work straight away: I will take notes while I take notes (how marvelously meta-whatever!) and use the notes on the notes for my worldbuilding class – show and tell style, to illustrate my worldbuilding and research method to my students, while I do it.
THEN, I’ll hand the notes to my brother, the other half of the Mana Brothers, and I’ll get him to revise the material, and then we’ll do a Tales from the Loop – The Roleplaying Game.
And then I’ll start writing the story.

The above is not just a plan to show I am the fastest gun in the West or what – it’s a method to keep the ideas alive while I write and publish.
I don’t want them to shrivel and die while I do other stuff, and I don’t want to keep them too long on the backburner, because overcooked ideas (if you pass me the metaphor) lose substance.

But first of all:
1 . Clear the desk of hanging jobs.
2 . Take two days off to recharge the batteries.

I’ll keep you posted.