Looking Forward: Plans for the Years Ahead

So, I now have a book in Amazon. It will get the usual treatments that E-books get. For me, I'll have to get the other half's editing down. It'll get the standard marketing buffet for Halloween and 30 to 90 days in the future, depending on the type of promotion.

But what am I going to do from here? Well, write! It's what writers do.

I have big plans, and many things to write.

But the general strategy of my work will differ from many other indies. I'm not going to have a series springing from my first book. Eventually, yes, but I've got other projects.

My strategy is basically 'Whatever the Hell I Want' (Guess where I adapted that line from? Hint: The title has a number)

And my next big project is a series of short stories, and it may include flash fiction and poetry. The latter two forms weren't in the original outline, but reading Stephen King gave me ideas (as usual). It was the book, Skeleton Crew, which tipped me off to the better way of doing things.

The way I see it, flash fiction and poetry can act as a kind of 'palate cleanser'. Prepares the reader for the next story with something wildly different. Sometimes, readers could get tired of reading stories of similar length.

10,000 x 10 words could become a little numbing, especially when we keep going through the same old-as-dirt Intro-Climax-Resolution story structure. I certainly felt it when I watched horror film anthologies. It doesn't matter how good the content is - because stories are more than just the content. It's plot, story, characters, structure, vocabulary, grammar, style, the vibe, personality of the author, stuff and things.

Anyway, that's my next immediate plan, and it will likely take anywhere between 2-4 months to finish the first draft, maybe 6-8 months to get it out, assuming that I learn from my experience with Pulau Purba and do things more smoothly.

Beyond my short story collection, I've finally got something related to The Keeper of Pulau Purba lined up. I'm thinking of doing an interquel, and not just any interquel. It'd be a collection of maybe 3 novellas, taking place during the events of the first novel.

Hmm... But anything can happen so far into the future. I might just decide to come up with a sequel. Interquel or sequel - Both are equally likely. I can see the appeal in both. But what is a guarantee is that I want to revisit the world of Pulau Purba.

So that just about covers my plans for the next... Oh, 2 years. Unless I achieve a paradigm shift in writing speed or something, in which case, 1.5 or 1 year.