Somewhere, in the depths of my hard drive, you’d find evidence of the general cycle my brain goes through looking for the story that I’m actually going to write. Now, I can look at my habits, and tell you that what all of my stories–the ones that have held my attention for any length of time– have in common is strange and complex relationships. And it doesn’t much matter if it’s the relationship between a serial killer and his old babysitter or the relationship between a cannibalistic alien queen and the human male she can’t quite bring herself to decapitate.

(Okay, yes. There’s probably a lot of gender in the stories, too.)

There’s also a fairly depressive chunk of the creative cycle where I’m just going to write mainstream erotica, because really… Space cannibals in love have been done to death.

The problem with that theory, of course, is that in the first place, I don’t really have the attention span for romance. (Writing. Not reading.) and in the second place, the fact that I declare something “erotica” doesn’t actually make it erotic.

So, there are a couple of not-quite books that float around my hard drive, waiting for the current book to finish being revised, and the right moment in the next string of serial rejections to pop up and taunt me.

You could be a top notch erotic romance writer, if only you could write the word “throb” without making your main character a brain in a tank.

Is there such a thing as disembodied brain porn?

So, I have reached the point in my revision where those files turn back up.

Maybe it’s my subconscious mind’s idea of a vacation.

You blew up three planets last week… why not put your feet up and write a poetic exploration of the intricacies of consent? C’mon… it’ll sell like hotcakes.

The beginning of things, the end of things? My warm-fuzzy side acting up because the plot demands the characters stay away from each other almost to the end of the novel? Maybe just a distraction. I don’t know. But I’m there, now.