I’ve been working on my next book, The AI Anomaly, and developing the story outline has been really stretching my ideas about humanity’s potential for evolution and what’s next.
My exploratory morning pages have churned out things that I didn’t even know were nesting in my inner workings.
This is a good place to be. I feel like I am on the right track with my habits and goals and I’m excited about how the story is growing.
“The Calm Before the Storm”
I had a fleeting thought this morning that I have felt this way before and then chaos ensued and I got knocked down or distracted or something got in the way of my progress. I thought, “Maybe this is the calm before the storm.”
I have thought that many times before.
I have had an expectation in the past of something negative balancing out my good. This train of thought presents a life where I am at the mercy of things happening to me and around me to determine how I feel about life at the moment.
Calm as a Choice
Even though that programming continues to pop up and test me, I know better. I have had enough experience to understand that I am in control of how I feel in any situation even if I am not in control of the situation.
This self-control is the calm. I enjoy this quiet place within myself. Focus and productivity grow out of it.
I’m not always perfect at maintaining my calm, but I have been working on daily habits to help me stay present to it.
It is a work in progress that I am happy to continue.
I am embracing the calm as my normal and there is no storm unless I allow it.
I’m finally back to developing my next book, The AI Anomaly. Hoorah!
I love the process of growing a story. The AI Anomaly is sprawling a little wildly in my mind and freewriting right now. It’s fun. It also needs a more defined focus.
Picking Up Where The Resurrection Incident Left Off
If you don’t know, The AI Anomaly is the sequel to The Resurrection Incident. In this next storyline, some of the Earthers head back to Earth to assess what is left and how they want to rebuild. One thing they find is an artificial intelligence created by the former generations of Earth humans, but it has had over 300 years to develop itself outside the confines of what humanity had established for it in the past.
I sort of want to just sit quietly somewhere and imagine all the possibilities. But, more than that, I want to get the story out into the world.
My Feelings on AI Villain Tropes (Hot Take Incoming)
I was working out the theme today because, for me, that is foundational to how the story will continue to grow. After my morning freewriting, I see it is shaping up to be something around our creations being extensions of ourselves and also allowing and encouraging independent thinking.
This past weekend, my husband and I watched the movie Atlas. This may be an unpopular stance, but I’m a bit done with storylines about AI only wanting to destroy humans because we are like a virus and are destroying the Earth.
I found the Terminator movies thought-provoking when they came out. I also feel like the fact that we’ve envisioned that possible future through the movie, we learned something. And, in that learning, maybe our relationship with AI has changed in a way that it would not go in that direction.
Building a Better Future (One Word at a Time)
Obviously, I don’t disagree that humans have done not great things to the Earth and we continue to do not great things. I also have an unwavering faith that as we each wake up to our innate potential, that there is no challenge we cannot overcome creatively and we will naturally shift to a more balanced existence.
Looking back, last year was an exploration of newly found freedom. I was in a flow state. I tried a bunch of things. I tested how many spinning plates I could manage at one time. I did a lot. I learned a lot. It was actually pretty awesome because it helped get really clear on what worked and didn’t, what supported my goals and what was a second or third head growing out of my creative body (nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the look I’m going for).
Clarity Over Chaos
I’m not a person that has a problem doing things. I am a person that sometimes has difficulty determining what things I should be doing – the things that would make the most difference. I expanded myself so much over the last year that it only seemed prudent to evaluate it all and make adjustments as appropriate. My past few posts have been about that and I am pleased with the progress.
When I look at all the things I have created this past year, I remember how much fun I had in doing so. However, I can also see that if I had framed a lot of it towards my main life goals, the framework would have been much stronger sooner and I might be further along.
Note to Self: Busy does not necessarily equate to reaching goals.
I’m not beating myself up. Just making an observation so I can be more efficient going forward.
Writing, With Intention
When I’m planning a book, other than the story idea itself, one of the first things I hone in on is the theme. Once I have that established, I use that as a filter for making other story decisions.
As I prepare to work on my next few books, I’m thinking about things differently. I feel like my last three books were rushed along faster than they needed to be. It was almost as if the getting it done was the most important part. I’m proud of what I accomplished, but a bit more planning would have helped me market them better.
Being in an ebb state now and with a clear purpose is showing me where I need to prepare my structures to hold and support/guide me when I’m back into flow and wanting to spill all over everywhere. It’s a balancing act. I find that I have to be cautious to not cut out too much when I’m ebbing because most things can just be tweaked to be aligned with what I want.
A Season of Restructuring
I expect many creatives experience this. I think we have to go through overflow after overflow to learn and grow and decide what really enlivens and inspires us.
I’m restructuring my day and month and year and general project plans in ways that I expect will support me. If a system breaks along the way, I’ll just fix it or replace it with something better.
Going forward, I’m all about my bespoke busy-britches!
I can’t remember where I first came across the following quote (and a quick search online didn’t help me either), but it had a big impact on my thinking:
“If you see something you think someone should do something about, you’re just as much someone as anybody else.”
It points to the fact that if we don’t like something we should just do something about it. It is a little annoying because sometimes I just want to complain about stuff. Ha!
The Writer Room Ripple Effect
A similar resistance showed up for me this past week when I was gaining more clarity around how I wanted to proceed creatively. In my last post, I mentioned that I shifted my room/office to be more expressive of my writerly-ness.
That, in turn, caused my mind to increase its focus as well. I could see that there were other areas in my life (especially online) where I had the same sort of convolutedness as I saw in my room pre-adjustment.
When Action Is the Answer (Even If You’d Rather Write)
I could also see that it would take quite a bit of work to get it adjusted (such as rebuilding/reorganizing websites and such) – time that would be taken away from constructing the books currently in my creative pipeline. I mulled it over longer than I should have.
I realized I had to take action, though, because I could see that taking care of these things now would allow me to grow more unfettered in the future. It would be better to get it all more closely aligned with my writerly-ness now than confuse people when I changed up stuff later (because change would be inevitable).
So, that’s what I’ve been doing these past few days. Thankfully, it has been going better than I expected. I still have work to do, but I know I am heading in the right direction.
The benefits of heading in the right direction is the gift of new book ideas popping up in my mind like perfect little saplings in a garden. Gotta continue keeping the weeds managed. Gotta get back to work…
I remember back in late 2023, I was talking to my Write on Purpose Coach, W. Bradford Swift, when I became clear that while I often talked about writing, I hadn’t made it a dominant part of my life.
On our video chats, I noticed that Coach Brad had a bookshelf full of his books behind him. In contrast, the shelf behind my desk held various things that I made and my books were stashed away in a cubby out of sight. Nothing wrong with that except that I wanted writing to be a dominant part of my life and my environment was not reflecting that.
A shift was in order.
Becoming the Writer (Visibly)
Inspired by uncovering my purpose in writing (to write enjoyable stories that cause young readers to imagine and experience new and expansive ideas), I took on becoming the person that would fulfill that purpose. I wanted anyone that looked at my desk area and shelf to know that I was a writer.
At the time, I only had two books published, “The Secret in Bladham Wood” and “Hope & Josie Go to the Prom” (co-written with a friend of mine). They didn’t take up much room on my shelf, so I took a few spare copies of my Bladham novel and covered them with mock-covers of books that I had already started and wanted to finish.
I couldn’t help but notice them every time I walked over to my desk and seeing them always made me smile. It helped me want to finish them even more.
That was late 2023, and now in early 2025, I have completed and published three of those books: “The Resurrection Incident”, “Sentenced”, and “Goddess Game.” (The illustrated stories have been written and storyboarded, but sidelined for the moment).
The Power of Visual Identity
It feels like quite an accomplishment as I had started them all around 2012-13 and there was no completion in sight.
I highly recommend a coach if you’re having trouble seeing why and how you’re holding yourself back.
Now that I have all that experience under my belt and new ideas, I’m not as intimidated as I once was to start and actually finish a book. I mean, I still have moments like “I have no idea where this is even going, how can I commit to finishing it!”, but then I recalibrate back to the person with a purpose, and I get on with it. (I don’t mean to make that sound super easy. I definitely still squirm a bit before I get back to work.)
Shifting Space, Shifting Self
Since my husband and I moved last year, I’ve been writing and I’ve also become a Sheila of multiple trades. My room/office has been filled with many wonderful supplies and tools.
I love having access to all these things AND I realized this past week that it did not reflect my writerly-ness.
When we first moved in, I had thought I might have a corner of the room dedicated to cozy reading or even meditation. Instead, in last year’s burst of exploratory growth, every nook and cranny was filled with “making things.”
A room is a bit more challenging than shifting around a bookshelf, but I took on rearranging it to be more aligned with where I want to be in life. The “making things” have been organized and stuffed into the closet (I will be spending time at a later date crafting some of my supplies down to a more manageable amount).
The end result: I have a corner cleared and ready for a comfy chair and blanket.
The Creative Center
The change feels right.
It feels aligned with my spirit, which wants to do everything (for sure), but mostly wants to write stories and enjoy stories.
That has to be the centerpiece. I’ll fit the rest in around that. 😊
