Write Away

To be honest I'm of the "it picks me" persuasion. Whatever story is naturally churning out the most ideas and details and makes me feel the most energized when I think about working on it is the one that I follow.

Last year I very reluctantly set my long-time work in progress aside to write my current novel because while trying to plan out the old project was making me feel stuck and lifeless and overwhelmed, the new one continued to feed me new ideas so persistently and made me want to sit down and write it. I felt guilty and scared when I decided to put my "if I can only write one story in my life it needs to be this one" to the back burner, but I decided it was time to listen to the other one, and it was a fantastic decision. Of course, the length I work with means that whatever idea I choose will strap me in for a long haul. So that's an increase in pressure.

Personally (at this point at least) I can't take audience appeal into account when it comes to deciding what to work on. For content within a story, I start to consider that, but if I'm not working on the story that has 100% of my enthusiasm behind it, the story won't happen.