Free to Write Anything, so What's Next?, an IWSG post

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Beth Camp, Liza @ Middle Passages, and Natalie @ Literary Rambles!

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I turned in the final novel in the Menopausal Superheroes series in 2024, for publication in 2025!

 

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Of course, I'm completely jazzed about that and I can't wait for readers to finish this journey with me (balloons, confetti, shouting in the streets!). 

 

Going Through the Change came out in 2015, so that means I'm starting 2025 with no writing deadlines to meet for the first time in ten years.

 

Okay, I'll still have editing deadlines to meet, but so far as the new projects I take on and the new words I create? They could be …anything! Which is wonderful and a little terrifying. 

 

See before I landed that first book contract, my big struggle as a writer was discipline--staying focused on a single project and seeing it to fruition without wandering off to explore the new shiny idea poking at my subconscious. But I respond very well to external deadlines. That little bit of external pressure calms the brain weasels. They take "no" for an answer when that "no" came from someone else, like John, my publisher. 

 

I mean, he does look kind of intimidating, doesn't he?

 

 

So, I worried that, once I didn't have a deadline hanging over my head, I'd founder. 

But, guess what? I haven't!

Since I turned in that novel, I've written a novella and a half of an intended set of three novellas that I plan to publish as my first all-indie project. In fact, I've been energized with that "new project energy" and creating at a faster pace than I have in years (ask John about all that deadline renegotiation we've gone through over the past couple of years). 

 

These are a whole new genre for me. My published work so far is the Menopausal Superheroes series, and a lot of dark-leaning short fiction. In fact, my author banner for events currently says: Samantha Bryant, Half-Hero, Half-Horror. 

 

Me selling my books at Splatterflix at the Carolina Theatre in Durham

 

These new novellas, though? Romance! 

A friend of mine from Women's Fiction Writers Association, Stella Fosse, wrote a how-to book about writing and publishing romances featuring older characters. I read and blurbed it for her--the connections to my own work with Menopausal Superheroes seemed obvious!

While I was reading, I had an idea…actually I had three ideas. And now, I'm off exploring an new-to-me genre and having a great time. My working titles: Not Too Late, a second chance Gen-X romance about a woman returning to her hometown and reconnecting with a boy she knew in high school; Acid Reign, a one-night-stand turns to love about an 80s punk star finding love with a local politician; and Skinny Jeans for Fat Girls, the idea for which is still just a nugget, so we'll see. But all three will feature women in their 50s finding love.

 

So that's what next for me! After that? Well, I've got several back burner projects I'd like to get back to, and a collection of short stories I never finished putting together, so there's a world of possibility out there. 

How about you? What's on the horizon for you in 2025? What are you excited about? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.