Nose to the Grindstone

I am hard at work at my third novel, even though I promised myself I would take a sabbatical from writing. When the inspiration to write hits me, however, I have to start again.  It’s an interesting process thus far.  It’s a sequel to my first novel, Windswept, but I am working to cover different ground, to tell a story from a different angle.  I’ve explored a variety of subjects in my first two novels, things I had never really considered writing until, well, I wrote them.  So with that said, I’m still thinking about the different angles.  Many popular fiction authors will write upwards of 30 or more books during a career—how do you get to a point where everything is still unique,  and you aren’t just writing the same thing over and over again?  It requires a lot of creativity, a lot of effort on the part of the author.