You know me. When I find a new toy or a tool, I get excited
about it, and I love sharing that stuff with my readers, colleagues, and
friends.

This website I’m going to tell you about today isn’t new to me. I used to use it back in the day (back in the day as in last year lol) when I was teaching high school kids and none of them wanted to volunteer to do their presentation. I always felt bad forcing them to stand up and speak because I don’t like public speaking, and it seemed wrong to me to make people do things I don’t like doing myself. Yet, when you teach English in a predominantly Spanish-speaking country, having the students deliver speeches is a major part of the curriculum. In every English class, they need to be constantly graded on their ability to use the English language to present info to their peers.

Fine, Chris, but what is this blog post about?

I’m glad you asked. Since I didn’t like choosing students to present, I found a fun website where I could input all the students’ names and then let the spinning wheel decide. So, I stumbled upon http://www.wheeldecide.com. Just to be clear, I have no affiliation with this website and don’t make a cent mentioning it. I think it’s useful, not only for students delivering speeches but also for authors unable to make book-related choices and for anyone else struggling with decisions.

Screenshot from WheelDecide.com

This is how I used it last night. Lately, I’ve been kind of
overwhelmed with all the books I feel I need to write. Do you ever have that
feeling that you’re running out of time? Hopefully, I’m not, but I can’t help
feeling like I’ll never tell all my tales. At some point, the clock will wind
down and my stories will be lost. It’s inevitable. Unless, of course, I catch
up to my mind, scribble down all my stories, and my creativity completely dries
up. Now, I don’t want that to happen either.

But anyway… last night I opened my laptop, clicked on my
book files, and stared at the folders for my three pen names.

Do I work on a horror novel for Carver Pike? Or a kinky
tale, maybe the next paranormal shark shifter book for Chris Genovese. Or, do I
jump right into my next motorcycle club romantic suspense book by CM Genovese?

I really need to finish a Carver book. The problem with my
Carver Pike books is, I have a file with probably 50 stories in it that all
fall under the horror or dark fantasy umbrella. Oftentimes, I open one
document, write a couple thousand words in it, and then close it. The next day,
instead of going back to yesterday’s story, I open a new one and punch out a couple
thousand words in that one. You can see how this would eventually get
frustrating. Yes, I’m technically working my ass off constantly and will someday
publish a ton of books, probably all at once.

But I need to focus and work on something that I can
complete and get into my readers’ hands.

So, I decided to open up Wheel Decide. It just hit me. I’ve used the tool at takeovers (online Facebook parties where you take over a group or a portion of an event, for anyone not familiar with a takeover). I once listed all the bikers from my Razorblade Tumbleweeds MC series, spun the wheel, and then told all the viewers of my live feed, one by one, which biker would be their ultimate blind date hookup (or something along those lines). I’ve used the wheel to tell viewers which animal they would transform into if they were a shape-shifting paranormal book character.

But the website can be used for so much more than party games. Last night, I started with Carver Pike and listed all of my horror WIPs (works in progress). The way it works is you write each item you want to put into the list on its own separate line (look at the screenshot below). Then, once you’ve entered all your options, you click on “Apply Wheel Changes.” Scroll back up, and you have a wheel with all your options on it. Clicking the wheel makes it spin, and it will eventually stop on one of the options. That’s your winner.

Screenshot from WheelDecide.com

So, I did this. I typed in all the book titles. Clicked
spin, then wrote down the winning title. That’s the first one I’ll work on.
Mine was a book titled Grad Night. If all goes according to plan, that’ll be
the next Carver Pike book to hit the virtual shelves. Next, I went down to my
options and clicked the “X” next to that title to remove it from the list and
once again clicked on “Apply Wheel Changes” so the wheel would update with Grad
Night removed. I kept repeating this until I had a list of all my Carver Pike
books.

Okay, for you seasoned authors, you’re probably rolling your
eyes and saying something like, “You need to write whichever book needs to be next.
Let the stories decide.” I’m fully capable of doing that. But this was a fun
way to create a tentative publishing schedule. Of course, I’ll be adapting it
as I go along. Some books need to be in a certain order or need to be published
long before others.

But I did this for all my Carver Pike horror and Chris
Genovese books. Of course, it’s all subject to change. As of right now, my next
Chris Genovese book will be Just F’n Bite Me: Guardians of the Deep 3. I didn’t
create a wheel for CM Genovese as I know the order I need to publish those
books.

So, as I work on Fury’s Grace: Razorblade Tumbleweeds MC
book 4 by CM Genovese, I’ll be alternating between only that one, Grad Night,
and Just F’n Bite Me. Those will be my 3 WIPs until they’re done. No more juggling
fifty books at a time. Then I’ll move on down the list.

I do not have dates set.

But if you think about it, this website can be so useful.
Maybe you want to use it to choose which task on your “to-do list” you want to
accomplish first. Maybe your kids can’t decide on a flavor of ice cream. Hell,
I’ve put a list of movies into it before because our family couldn’t pick a movie
to watch together. The wheel decided our Saturday Horror Movie schedule.

You might even want to throw some sex positions in there and
see how tonight will turn out lol. Go for it.

As an author, you can use the wheel to:

Choose character namesSelect a character’s hair or eye colorDecide on a city to base your book out ofPick which character dies nextCome up with the order for your list of stories in an anthology or collection book

Anyway, I think it’s a pretty kickass tool. Hope you find it
as useful as I do.

Thanks for reading.

As always, please check out my list of books on the home page of this website by clicking HERE.

Chris