If you haven’t been following Authoring Arrowheads for long, you may not know that my second novel, Speak Your Mind, is my first and only middle grade novel to date.

Do I plan to write any more middle grade books? That’s up in the air. Here’s why.

I Have More Book Ideas for Other Age Groups

The main reason why I’m not sure if I’ll write another middle grade book in the next few years is that the majority of my pending, concrete book ideas have been for young adult or adult audiences rather than for middle grade readers. Honestly, I’m a bit upset about this, because I had the best time writing Speak Your Mind and would love to write another book with as much spunk and silliness as that book has. My pending, concrete book ideas include two new adult/adult Christian romcoms (I *finally* got another book idea, thank God!), and a spin-off of Speak Your Mind about a beloved side character that I’m not sure should be written for upper middle grade or young adult audiences. I’m not sure why, but the spin-off has been intimidating me ever since I first came up with the idea, so I may end up writing the romcoms first while I’m still mulling over whether this character’s story should be written.

Speak Your Mind is my Least Popular Book

To my absolute dismay, Speak Your Mind is currently my least popular book in terms of its number of reviews and sales (aside from The Dream, which is a recent release), which makes me wonder if any future middle grade books I would potentially write and Indie publish would suffer the same fate. I’ve also wondered if changing Speak Your Mind‘s cover would help from a marketing standpoint, so I’m not 100% sure if the book’s lackluster popularity is due to the current cover not appealing to readers or if it truly is this hard to reach readers as an Indie middle grade author. That being said, if God blesses me with another concrete middle grade book idea, I will still write and publish it if He leads me to do so.

All That Being Said, I Do Have a Possible Idea in the Works!

Several years ago, I entertained the idea of writing a portal fantasy novel for middle grade readers, and I even wrote a few pages. I came across what I had originally written on notebook paper a few weeks ago and typed it up in a Word document. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was, and I’ve considered pursuing it ever since. BUT the thing is, as some of you know, I’m not a big fantasy reader, so I’m questioning my ability to tackle such a task. I love the idea, and I want to do it justice, but maybe doing this specific idea justice involves keeping it as a private writing project rather than writing it to publish. I’m not sure. Either way, the book idea is secular at the moment and I’m not sure how to weave Christian messages into it, so there’s also that. My main goal as an author is to make God known to readers through the books He allows me to write, and if that story can’t allow me to do that, it needs to sit on the back burner while I prioritize others that can.

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

Do you read a lot of middle grade? If you haven’t already and are interested in contemporary Christian middle grade books or books that represent characters with social anxiety, please check out Speak Your Mind! It’s the book of my heart and was a very personal book for me to write.

Aim high, stay strong, and always hit your mark.

-Allyson 😀