The Monsters in my Laptop:
This is Steve. Say hi, Steve.
By Thio Isobel Moss
Every week, I come up with one to five new story ideas — more than I could possibly write in a lifetime. If I don’t manage them carefully, they start clawing at the inside of my brain — and eventually my laptop.
I’ve read about established authors choosing one project for their audience and another just for themselves. That makes sense when you already have a fanbase. But what does a newer author do when every idea feels urgent, and none of them come with built-in expectations?
For me, this question is bigger than it sounds. My phone’s Notes app fills up fast — several new ideas every week. The lucky ones, the ideas with enough mass to keep orbiting in my head, get transferred to my laptop. The rest are ruthlessly deleted. If I don’t do this, I drown in concepts I can’t stay interested in for the length of a novel.
Once those survivors — with working titles like Kicking and Screaming, Strange Canary, and Insidious, Nefarious, and Sly — are written up with a paragraph or two, they may sit untouched for months or years. Some are forgotten. Others develop a kind of insistent sentience, distracting me from what I’m currently working on.
I’ve learned the hard way that trying to juggle too many projects at once doesn’t make me more productive — it scatters my focus. Instead, I block my days into Deep Writing, Marketing, Blogging, and Writing Exercises. Just as artists warm up before drawing, spending a little time with those persistent ideas refreshes me for my main work. It’s like palate-cleansing between genres: a quick mental shift that keeps the creative muscles loose.
This process also helps me gauge which ideas have real staying power. If an outline comes easily, that’s a good sign. If characters start furnishing a room in my brain, even better. And if the setting fascinates me? Ding, ding, ding — we may have a winner.
Right now, I have two years of novels planned. I’d love to map out more — I certainly have the ideas — but I know new ones will arrive whether I’m ready or not. A series that was once scheduled to follow The Covenant’s Forfeit has been pushed aside entirely. Not delayed — displaced. Part of me hates shelving a story I love, but the loudest ideas tend to be loud for a reason. Bigger monsters have asserted their dominance.
That shifting schedule forces me to think realistically about output. I’m aiming for roughly 230,000 words in 2026 and crossing my fingers for 330,000 in 2027. It’s ambitious — even a little masochistic — but I’m trying to balance optimism with reality. I just genuinely love my ideas.
The real challenge will be finding an equilibrium between writing what excites me and paying attention to reader trends. Ideally, those paths overlap. If they don’t, it becomes a negotiation. The more feedback I get, the better I can navigate that space. I need data — but I also need to listen to the monsters.
For now, I’m learning to live with them. The ideas that refuse to quiet down are often the ones worth chasing. Whether they reign supreme or hitch a ride on the latest genre train… well, that’s part of the adventure.
Bump is drawing to a close. The Covenant’s Forfeit 2 & 3 are locked in. Where should I go next: a darkly charming mountain town with secrets, a primitive base on an ocean world, or into the forest with mischievous beings?
