I have a confession to make.

I watch reality TV shows.

Not things like “The Bachelorette” or “Big Brother.” No, they’re shows where the contestants must have talent. Like “Face Off,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” “The Voice” or even “Project Runway.”

In the early days of “Project Runway”, when it was more about the creativity and less about the controversy or story, Tim Gunn talked about how the constraints for a challenge actually pushed the designers to be more creative.

I’ve thought about that a lot. How constraints can make you more creative. And I think that in some ways, it’s true.

For example, I’ve recently finished writing a bunch of short stories for a workshop. I would get the topic for the week Monday morning, then have to finish the story and turn it in by Sunday evening. The story had to be on topic, in word count range, and professional quality. Six of those, one week after another.

As my sweetie says, the people doing this workshop are stone cold pros. They can all hit that mark. It’s a skill set that I’ve developed over the years, and I work hard to keep up with the other pros.

The last story that I wrote for this workshop is certainly…different. Unusual for me. I would say unexpected.

I have no idea if other people will like it, if it will sell.

I do believe my sweetie when he says it’s a powerful story.

And I never would have written it if it hadn’t been for the constraints put on me, writing about a particular topic, with a specific length, with only a week to write it. I might not have written it at all. The fear that would have stopped me is the question, “Is this my story to tell?”

I tried to be true to the characters and their situation as I perceived it. And maybe it isn’t my story. But I swung for the fences, and we’ll just have to see.

Another way that I make constraints work for me is time. If I have all day to write, chances are, I won’t, or I won’t start until late in the afternoon.

Sometimes I tell myself, “Okay, you can write this morning. But you only have until noon. Then you have to stop and do other things.” That often gets me motivated to write.

It’s the same thing with ideas. If you have all these ideas, how to choose the right one? (A real writer never asks where do you get your ideas from. A real writer asks, how do you make the ideas stop coming so fast and furiously?)

I have a new novel to start on Monday. It’s the third Cassie novel, Spoiled Harvest. It takes place a little over a year after the events in Tainted Waters.

I may or may not actually start writing fiction on Monday. What I’d really like to do is to write up some kind of outline, first. I may spend my writing time on Monday reacquainting myself with the world and writing up an outline.

Not a detailed outline, that’s for certain. Just a vague, “this is what happens next.” Probably no more than 1000 words long.

Most of the time, I don’t write outlines for my novels. The last novel I wrote, The Glass Magician had a 126 word outline. This “outline” didn’t specify what happened in any of the chapters. Instead, it specified the emotional resonance of each chapter, where I wanted the characters to be in their emotional journey. How they got there was completely creative and surprising. I had no idea what I was about to write, how each chapter would go, what would happen to the characters.

But I knew where I wanted them to be, emotionally, by the end of each chapter.

For Spoiled Harvest I want an outline mainly because there are so many story lines that I have initially, and I want to get a better handle on when they’re going to collapse down into the main plot line.

I do not plan on writing any kind of outline for the next novel, the one I’ll write after I finish Spoiled Harvest. (It’s name is The Immortals’ War) I have a good enough idea of where that novel is going, how it needs to go.

I’ve written three short stories that make up the first third of what will be that novel: Dancing with Tong Yi, War on All Fronts, and The Sweet Shop. All together, they’re about 30,000 words.

With those three stories, I’ve set up a love triangle, a hate triangle, the conflict between the two brothers, as well as the war itself.

The next story in that series is called The Immortals’ War (which is also the name of the novel itself). It will be written like the others, kind of like a short story, with a beginning, middle, and end, though it won’t stand alone. I won’t bring in enough of the backstory to make it a stand alone piece.

The last story for that novel is called, Kiss. And Make Up. It’s the final long piece in the novel.

Then there’s the epilogue.

All together, I anticipate another 60K words. (20K, 25K, and 5K, respectively.) So about 90K total.

That’s all the outline I need for that novel. I kind of know what will happen. Vaguely. Sort of. But this world has made a habit of surprising me, of unfolding at its own pace. I’ll see what actually happens. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

After that, I have no idea what I’ll write next. I have a novella due come fall. More Uncollected Anthology stories between now and the end of the year. More novels, though I have no idea what. I still want to write, The Dwarven Wars and finish out the Clockwork Fairy trilogy. I’ve finished The Princess Troll—just need to get that into production. Then write the last of that triology. I have the next story after The Glass Magician that I need to write.

And other things too. Stories of the heart.

And this is one constraint I don’t miss. I don’t have an editor telling me what to write, generally. I don’t have a marketing department telling me that they can’t sell the latest novel. That I have to go write something else.

I get to write what I want. I get to write what I love. Hopefully, I write it well enough that it will sell. That other people will enjoy the tales I tell myself.

Some constraints aren’t good. At least not for me. And I’m so happy we now live in this brave new world, and I don’t have to worry about them, not ever again.