Next Time follows a couple who fall in love despite one’s unique condition of being ripped through time unexpectedly. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The idea for Next Time was truly a lightning bolt out of nowhere, which is the only time that’s ever happened to me. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. when I was recovering from jet lag, and the basic concept popped into my brain. It must have been a good one, because I actually remembered it when I woke up. I immediately started jotting down some ideas for the story and completed writing the first draft in less than two months. To be fair, I initially resisted calling it a love story, but that’s what it turned out to be. The idea intrigued me that we see people in bits and pieces, day after day, but don’t thinking of anything of it. We see it all as continous. What about someone like Miriam who does the same, but the gaps in those bits and pieces are spread out across the calendar? She sees it as normal and is it any less of a valid perspective of continuity than ours? Does all that count as inspiration? Maybe. I just know it was a story I had to write so I could find out how it ended.

I enjoyed the romantic relationship between William and Miriam. How did their relationship develop while you were writing it? Did you have an idea of where you wanted to take it or was it organic?

Before I write anything, I usually chart out where I want the book to go with a page or so of bullet points. And then as I start writing the book, I go completely off the rails concerning those points. As I write the characters, their personality comes out in ways I didn’t expect, which to me is one of the fun parts of writing. In the case of William and Miriam, I knew I couldn’t start off with William believing her story of time-travel. He had to grow into it along with the reader. I thought it would be interesting to take a character who’s on the cusp of entering the “real” world after graduating with an advanced degree, who seemingly has his whole life planned out, and then it’s upended by a woman who’s never been able to plan more than a few minutes ahead in her own life. A lot of what you see in the book came out naturally as the story grew, hopefully just like relationships do in real life. We have an idea of where we want to take our lives but does it always turn out the way we planned it?

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

One of the things I ask myself before writing a book is the question, “Why tell this story at all?” For Next Time, the answers to that question revolved around self-sacrifice and how William and Miriam build a life together when they see each other for only hours or a few days at a time. The self-sacrifice part isn’t some noble gesture on his part. It’s a hidden part of his character that William embraces indirectly and is addressed in the story by his friends and family who don’t understand why he’d mold his life around the random appearances of Miriam. For her part, building a long-term relationship with someone is not something Miriam’s ever done in her thousand years of jumping forward through time. She knows that in a year of her time William will age 50 years, so her self-sacrifice comes about in a different way. How they get to those points and build that life is what I feel is the overall theme.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?

I have another book ready to release titled Assignment Day, about a high school student in 2080 who uncovers a secret regarding virtual reality that makes him the target of a hidden cabal running the world through the virtual landscape. It should be out by early 2025. I’m currently writing a sequel to First, my first professionally published novel that came out late 2023. Fans really took a liking to one of the AI characters in the book, and part of this book will be told from the AI’s point of view. I’m hoping to get the first draft done this summer so I can publish it next year as well. As to a sequel for Next Time? You never know…

Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2024/06/13/entering-the-real-world/