Book Ideas for 2019

Happy Christmas Eve! My Holiday Deals will keep going until the end of the year, so if you haven’t purchased your signed books yet, go do it now!

With the end of the year quickly approaching, I’ve been thinking about some of the projects I want to work on next year. Just about every writer has a drawer full of ideas and needs to prioritize which ones to do first. Generally, I try not to start up something new until I’ve gotten to a good stopping point on my current project. But I’ve also found that getting exciting about the next thing gives me the motivation to hurry up and finish what I’m currently working on.

The second installment of the In the Lurch series is almost completed, and I will be announcing it soon. After that, I’ve got tons of ideas for the third novel. I had hoped to get book three drafted for NaNoWriMo 2018, but I haven’t gotten too far into it yet.

I’ve also been knocking around the idea of writing a prequel to Quality DNA. Quality DNA is still my favorite novel. It also sells well, and I’d love to craft another story in that universe. I want to start with a whole cast of characters who were somehow genetically altered, and also look at how the global DNA database in Quality DNA first came about.

The project I’m most excited about is a puzzle book based on the idea of an escape room. I’m a huge fan of puzzles and escape rooms—I’ve done a few at Breakout Games and have played through several escape room board games (here’s a list of the ones I recommend).

There are a few innovative puzzle books I’ve worked through recently, including Journal 29 and The Librarian’s Almanaq. Journal 29 uses QR codes and a website to check your answers, which is cool, but I’d like to find a way to verify solutions which doesn’t rely on having a cell phone and the internet (and without just revealing the answer). And even though I understand that part of doing puzzle books is that they’re one-time use, I don’t want to require my book to get totally destroyed like The Librarian’s Almanaq. That, and after ripping out so many pages, solving the challenges started getting a bit unwieldy.

Over the holidays, I’m letting these three ideas stew in my brain, and in the new year, I’ll decide which to prioritize. Until then, I wish you a wonderful holiday and merry Christmas!