The Bookstore Series

Out of nowhere, when I was trying to do research for the next book in the Bookstore series. I got the idea that catapulted me into the outline of the fourth book, which is the direct sequel of the first! So now I have 4 book for that series, but only one written.

Here's what I'm thinking will happen:

Book 1: The poison spindle problem--Kate gets kidnapped into a world peopled by fairytale characters where the witches have taken over the kingdom and are planning to execute the handsome princes unless she can find the missing heir to the throne in time....This one is finished.

Book 2: Needs a title--Kate goes to a world peopled by the characters from American folksongs and western lore. She chases down a ring of criminals that are selling women into slavery, helps solve a murder mystery, finds a lost mine, and stops the US Cavalry from wiping out a tribe of Native Americans.

Book 3: Porphyra--Kate finds herself in the Victorian England of the horror lore. Vampires are after the heros of Bram Stoker's Dracula again, and Kate helps them track down the source of the vampirism and destroy it, killing all vampires at once--except the one that escaped to Provo, UT. She finally meets Uncle Stan and helps him in his own adventure--saving a kidnapped Egyptian Princess from the men who want her prematurely mummified so they can take over the kingdom.

Book 4: The Icicle Dagger--Goldie and Jerusha (from book 1) set out to get revenge for their humiliation at the end of Book 1. They collect the "bad guys" from Oz, Neverland, and Wonderland, kidnap both Dorothy Gale and Elizabeth, Kate's sister-in-law who is 9 months pregnant, and set a trap to catch Kate and get rid of her permanently.

I have some ideas for other books in the series, too, with Kate playing sidekick to superheroes, going to outer space on a mission to save the galaxy, finding herself in the amateur detective role to find out who is murdering the Easter Bunnies (at a convention of all holiday-related folktale characters), wandering a world peopled by Shakespeare's characters but controlled by the conventions of musical theatre and light opera (especially Gilbert and Sullivan), wandering a more traditional fairy fantasy in which malevolent fairies are kidnapping human girls to act as slaves, and lost as the female romantic lead in a gothic romance inspired by a story from Wilson Family History that Grandma Wilson told me. I also want Kate to be in a pirate story, but I don't even have a brief plot for that, only the name of the other main character, and a picture book in which each page is written and illustrated in the style of a different famous author or author/illustrator combo. I need a plot for that, too. And, I guess, I'm digging for a plot for the Shakespeare--I can't decide if I should steal a plot from one of the plays, or one of his rival's plays, or make a conglomerate plot, or just come up with my own.

Anyway, to put this all briefly, I am having a lot of fun. But I think I have a whole career's worth of writing here--and this doesn't even cover the young adult series I have three books outlined for (and one chapter written), or the Maggie the ex-spy Mormon Housewife series that I've started the first book in the series and outlined at least 4 more for. I don't seem to lack for ideas.

Now if I could just get an agent. Or a publisher. Or maybe not. This way it's all just for fun. Maybe I'll let my kids publish it all after I'm long gone--as a sort of inheritance for them.

Anyway, what' I've discovered is that when things are rough in one area, there is often some delight sitting right there to distract me, or lighten things, or give me joy despite the stresses of life.