I've been thinking a lot about my next next book lately.
No, that's not a typo. My next next book -- the book after my next one.
I know what my next book's going to be. My next next next book, too (as in the book after the book after my next one). But my next next I'm not so sure about.
Confused? Let me try to clear things up.
Today, I officially finished the third Big Red/Old Red mystery. (So why I'm sitting here updating the blog instead of hurrying over to Safeway to buy a celebratory four-buck bottle of champagne I couldn't tell you.) And sitting on my desk is a freshly signed contract for the fourth and fifth Big Red/Old Red mysteries. I already know what the plots of these will be, in a broad brush stroke kind of way. What I'm not so sure about is the novel I'm hoping to start between #4 and #5.
After I turn #4 in to my editor, you see, I'll probably have a nice stretch of down-time before I get his notes. I'd like to get something rolling while I'm waiting -- something I can write quickly because (hopefully) I'll have been planning it months in advance. It should be completely different, completely new. Not Big Red and Old Red. Not historical (or set in the 19th century West, anyway). Heck, maybe not even a mystery.
And that's all I know about it. I mean, I've got ideas. Whoa, baby -- do I ever have ideas. Too many, in fact. That's part of the problem. If I only had one...well, there you go. But I've got five or six, and I can't decide which one to commit to.
Should it be the wacky-ass comedy/crime caper? The satirical post-modern thriller? The romantic comedy/whodunit? The radical re-imagining of a crime fiction icon? The noirish coming-of-age story? The gay erotica fantasy epic?
I like all these ideas. (Well, some more than others. Gay erotica fantasy epics have become such a cliché, don't you think?) But which one should I commit to? I can't decide.
Which is where you come in. "Give the people what they want," The Kinks once said. And who am I to argue with the guys who gave the world "Lola"?
So I'm asking: What do you want from me? And please don't say "money." That I can't give the people. I've barely got enough for me.
I'm talking book-wise. You've read Holmes on the Range and On the Wrong Track...I hope. (If you haven't, shame on you! Get thee to a bookstore and purchase those puppies pronto!) What would you like to see me tackle next?
A comedy? A thriller? A chiller? A Phyllis Diller? A cat mystery? A dog mystery? A wombat mystery? A Harlequin romance?
Tell me. Please.
Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste...and when it comes to what I should do next next, mine's just about shot.
Steve Hockensmith
July 9, 2007
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