But first an outline

I think it might be almost time to start my new project.

The problem with being a writer is the constant influx of story ideas. In my case, they're all ideas for novels, which take a relatively long time to write. Sometimes I think an idea is a short story idea, and when I start writing it turns out I've got a novel idea after all. Sometimes I think an idea is ripe, and I get five or ten or fifty thousand words in and realize I only had half an idea. (Outlines help with that problem, but I don't always do an outline.) I always intend to come back to those half-done projects (like Little Sparrow and How Christopher Kaplan Learned to Lie and Adventures in Zoology). But time is short, and there are always new ideas crowding in.

I was messing around with the sequel to Misfits, which has a working title of Unsung Math Genius. But I'm hesitant to write too much on it while I'm still querying agents for the first book. I don't want to jump the gun on the direction the series takes.

So I've been doing some editing and a little bit of writing here and there instead. And then BAM! An idea smacked me upside the head. It's YA, probably SF/F although that's an aspect of the plot I haven't resolved yet (the bad guys could be aliens or zombie type monsters or real life terrorists, depending on where I want to take the story).

Last night I figured out the main characters' names. Tonight: outline time. And then the first words.