Like balls in the air

As you may or may not know, I'm working on the third book in my Blood Rights series that releases next fall from Orbit books. The series is being billed as gothic urban fantasy and involves a lot of characters and a lot of story lines.

Basically, they're complicated. I don't think they're so much complicated to read as they are to write, though. See, while the reader will have all the story lines laid out for them, I have to keep them all in my head, all moving along, all traveling toward the same interwoven end.

It's a lot like what I imagine juggling to be. Thinking not just one but two and sometimes three steps ahead. What happens halfway through one subplot will impact the ending of another. A bad beginning and the ball drops. A wrong choice and the ball drops. Information given too soon - or not soon enough and the ball drops.

And that's just one book. The kicker is the series on the whole works the same way because the same characters are featured in every book. There are character arcs to consider, larger plotlines, growth, development...lots and lots of balls in the air. (And I'm a pantser. Scary, huh?)

So like a juggler, I keep moving, keep writing forward, keep pushing through each subplot, weaving and layering as I go because if I stop? If I forget to keep one going? It all comes down. Or at the very least, leaves a gaping hole. But there's a frantic energy to it as well and that energy is what motivates me to get on the keyboard every day and see what's going to happen next.

What are you juggling? How's it working for you?