The coming summer brings writing time. Story ideas flood my thoughts. Starting as the occasional drip, it's grown into a full rush of plans and plots. I wonder where they will go and if I can capture them all. It looks promising, so far.
The last two novels generated notes for several more stories involving the same world. One story is positioning itself as the next candidate. It gives glimpses of scenes, and plot points. The hero minds his own business. The antagonists prepare to pounce.
My original plan was to write another story involving Mason Leroy, the hero of Cordell's Rebellion. The story line is solid with plenty of action and suspense, but that's it. All I have is a play-by-play of the events of the story, but no character arcs. At this point, the characters would just be reacting to circumstance and that does not make for a good read.
Instead, the likely story uses an old character, but this time it is Gary from Hour of Consequence. He was the radio engineer at the station where Reverend John worked. Now he has moved on to other adventures, but he thinks he has seen someone he recognizes. That someone is up to no good.
If this works out, it connects the Cordell world with short stories and notes I've written over the past few decades. That means all of these stories will form a cohesive whole, making use of all my previous effort. If it doesn't work out, I'll have a convoluted mess.
The real trick is to fit this around my regular work schedule. Still shorthanded, I'm in for a busy spring semester. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I've got eight straight hours in the classroom, ending at ten o'clock in the evening, with barely a break in the middle. Mondays and Wednesdays will be shorter, but start earlier in the morning. Add my office hours, and it makes for exhausting days. Sixteen weeks of that is likely to wipe me out.
Still, I just need to hold out till summer. If I can keep my notes until then, and stay healthy, I'll be ready to slap together a story in no time. I'll map the plot and the character arcs and let the rest fall into place. With any luck, I'll be done before the fall semester when my time goes away again.