Origins, ideas & interconnectivity…
Image by DiegoPH, used under Unsplash license.
I’ve spent a lot of time delving into where I find inspiration and admiration on this blog. Whether it’s Influential, Best Character Ever or Newer Gods, I’ve found things in places far and wide to inspire my own creative energy in numerous ways.
Yet, I have only scratched the surface. Every writer gets asked “where do your ideas come from?” at some point. Every writer has to answer that question in their own way. For me, it’s pretty much everywhere. I’ll pull bits of a thought here or a clever idea there and find ways to fuse them together. Often they’ll sit in the back of a mind — or on a page of a notebook — for weeks or months or years before I finally find ways to combine the ingredients into the soup of innovation.
As KITH looms closer (pre-order information soon!) I’m already deep into making sure volume two is just as good as the first. I had a loose structure for the first volume, but I wasn’t sure how to kickoff and expand the next book. Then I re-read an old blog post and realized I had created a character years ago that I left in a place that would come together as a great launching point for the next volume. From there, I could develop the basic structure of a book. As I’ve continued, I’ve found ways to connect it with what’s going on with Lightweight and an upcoming project as well.
That level of inter-connectivity will prove essential as the MHP Universe continues to develop over the next few years. When I first started to lay the framework for the MHP Universe so many years ago, I wanted that inter-connectivity to be a feature, not a bug. While the universes of comic books and even Marvel films can sometimes get bogged down by minutiae, I want my tales to reward the eagle-eyed reader willing to follow my career from book to book. Lightweight and KITH — as well as Epsilon, Smoke and Ash, and the rest of my current and future catalog — won’t require you to read everything in order to enjoy them. But the continuity allows me to bring just a bit extra to the page.
As I built up the structure for KITH volume 2, and beyond that, the entire MHP Universe, I always spend my time focused both on what’s next for the heroes and the connections to everything I have or want to bring to the pages. I might meld a dozen ideas into one novel, but I am working to meld a thousand into an entire connected universe.
What comes next?
This blog post marks the one-year anniversary since I first started to make this beautiful new website you’re reading this post on now. I spent years trying to make a perfect website. Then even longer trying to make a great blog. Sometimes I let it distract me from what this is really all about: the writing and you, dear readers.
If you’re a regular reader of either my books, this blog, or — hopefully — both, I want to hear from you. Let me know in the comments what you want to see on At the Helm in the next twelve months. Let me know if you’re excited for KITH or anything else I have in the pipeline. I try to tailor this blog with you in mind, dear readers. Now I’m asking you to help me flesh out everything you want to see ahead!
Thanks again and I look forward to another year of great stories!
