incarnating ideas to avoid their wrath

Last week I watched the phenomenal Sinners (2025), and despite its decidedly welcome double helping of Michael B Jordan, as the story progressed I found myself becoming more and more dismayed. I’m working on another book (tentatively titled Razor’s Edge) set in the same oppressive southern atmosphere as Six Mile Store (obligatory pre-order link! now with Audible audiobook!). As Sinners continued, I realized that Ryan Coogler’s story was weirdly similar to what I’ve outlined for Razor’s Edge. Not obviously so; you wouldn’t necessarily read my work and think “this is Sinners again,” but you might think I had written some vague Sinners fanfic. Worse, Sinners is better, and it does more, than my story as outlined.

You know that thing Mrs EatPrayLove said? Basically, ideas are living creatures who ask you to bring them to fruition, and if you don’t, they’ll go find someone else to give them life. Now, because of the timescales involved in making movies, I’m sure Coogler’s idea for Sinners came before I outlined Razor’s Edge. Nevertheless, by the time I finished the film, I did feel like I should have finished my second book before I watched it. Then again, maybe I saved myself by not finishing Razor’s Edge yet, because I was actually considering two different routes for the story. Now I can go down the other one. I’m forced to, really.

The last time this kind of chill came over me was in 2016, when Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman came out. You better believe that when I saw that title, I immediately got my hands on a copy. I inhaled it as fast as I could. I was terrified that someone else had somehow written the story I had been mulling over for so many years. And of course she couldn’t have written the same story—nobody could, really—but something in the same vein? I just couldn’t handle it if that had happened. Fortunately, it did not, and my book is now standing on the precipice of entering the world (19 March! Paperback, ebook, audiobook! Available to order from your fave bookstore, in person or online, or direct from the press if you’re in the UK! Preorders make authors REALLY happy!).

So, back to Razor’s Edge. Yes, I should be writing it now. But as it happens, I’m in another quandary: I’m listening to Bret Easton Ellis’s Shards on audiobook, and as a result I am seized with an intense desire to write the autofictional horror story I conceived after the artists’ retreat I went on where I finished Six Mile Store. Shards does not pull any punches with regard to involving real people or describing real events, and I feel deeply inspired to make some serious mischief by putting my real life friends into this creepy little story I’ve thought up. In fact, I’ve always intended to, and they know that. Which means that idea is overdue to be brought into existence too.

I’ve never been a writer who suffers from too many ideas. I know lots of authors struggle with knowing which piece to work on next, or maybe they outline one thing, then they’re sick of it, so they work on another thing for a while, but then they’re inspired by a third idea etc etc. That has never been my problem; my problem was finding the ideas that would let me flesh out my One Idea in a way that told the story adequately. This too-many-ideas problem is new to me, therefore, and I’m not really sure how to proceed. Do I capture this insistent little thought that has been awakened by Shards? Or do I work on the book that has already changed thanks to Sinners? Do I go full woo-woo conspiracy theorist and see Sinners as a cosmic warning shot?