When Is Enough, Enough?

I don't need another story. There. I've said it.

I have plenty of projects already. More than plenty, actually. I have enough stories in various stages of development to keep me occupied for a very long time. There are drafts that need revision, outlines that are waiting to become drafts, and ideas that have been sitting patiently in the background while I work on something else.

So naturally, yesterday I thought of another story. This is one of the strange problems of being a writer. At some point, you have to balance the work you've already created with the ideas that keep showing up uninvited.

When a new idea arrives, there is always a temptation to chase it. Sometimes that probably isn't the wisest thing to do. I only have so many hours in a day, and I can only write so many words. Every hour I spend exploring a new story is an hour I'm not spending on one of the stories already waiting for me.

So what do you do with the new idea? Do you let it fizzle out? Do you make a note of it and promise yourself you'll come back to it someday? Or do you give it a little attention and see where it wants to go?

I've generally chosen the third option. I have a hard time believing that every idea that comes to mind needs to become a novel. But I also have a hard time believing that every idea deserves to be ignored simply because I already have enough projects.

For me, there is something valuable about exploring an idea before deciding what it is worth.

That is how Gravity, Maine came about. I certainly didn't need another novel. But the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I gave it some attention. I started pulling at the threads, asking questions, developing characters, figuring out what had happened in this strange little town and why. Before I knew it, I had written a full master outline.

Gravity, Maine is a folk-horror mystery about a small town whose eccentric legends conceal a history of exploitation, secrecy, and buried grief. The story begins when Hugh Manning dies, and the town discovers that the seemingly modest local resident was secretly a millionaire. His trust benefits Gravity, but the money also begins to unsettle old arrangements and expose connections the town has spent decades ignoring.

Then people start dying. Nancy Truitt's death appears to be a suicide. Mathias Rourke is obviously murdered. Ginny Ryan's hidden death finally comes to light. And medical examiner Elliot Goshen is drugged and hanged in what appears to be a particularly theatrical suicide.

Kirby Kershaw, a mortuary-science graduate who has returned home after his mother's death, doesn't believe the explanations he's being given. Working first against and eventually alongside Sheriff Pike Everly, he follows the physical evidence through the funeral home, medical records, Hugh's archives, Wildflower Lane, and the complicated relationships among the victims.

But even that isn't the whole story.

The town has its legends. There is the annual mountain hum. A mysterious pink kitten. An unexplained bunker. Wildflower Lane and its strange history of cancer deaths. Hugh's fortune. And, beneath all of it, the realization that Hugh Manning had spent years manipulating Gravity's history and building his own private legacy from other people's secrets and suffering.

The more I worked on it, the more the story became about something larger than solving a series of murders.

It's about whether a community can acknowledge the truth when its prosperity depends upon preserving a lie.

And Kirby's journey mirrors that question. He has to learn to trust his own judgment—not just when he's examining bodies, but when he's trying to understand the town itself. He has spent too much of his life accepting other people's explanations. Now he has to decide when those explanations aren't good enough.

Even after finishing the outline, there are still mysteries left unresolved. Like the source of Gravity's mysterious hum remains unexplained. Perhaps most unsettling of all, the town ultimately chooses to preserve Hugh's secrets because the money is too valuable to lose. Kirby doesn't agree.

So now I have another master outline. Was the time I spent creating it worthwhile? I think so.

At least, I think it was worthwhile to discover what the story actually was. I don't have to draft it tomorrow. I don't even have to draft it next year. Having the outline doesn't obligate me to write the novel immediately. It simply means that when I am ready for it—or if I ever become ready for it—I won't have to start from nothing.

Maybe that's the balance I'm still trying to figure out. There is value in creating new work, but there is also value in finishing, revising, and nurturing the work that already exists. I don't want an ever-growing collection of ideas to become an excuse for never completing anything.

At some point, I have to say, "No. I have enough." The problem is, I'm not entirely sure where that point is. Maybe someday I'll finally have an idea and think, That's interesting, but I already have enough stories. Or maybe I'll never reach that point.

I'll have to let you know when that day occurs.