Stuck and Not Sure Which Path to Follow

I completely understand the fear of failure. I'm about to start querying my third novel, and while writing it wasn't hard, and I think it's a pretty good book, the prospect of getting dozens or hundreds of rejections makes me want to keep it safe on my hard drive where no one can judge it. But if I ever want to get published, I know I need to send it out there and face the consequences.

In your case, you really only have two choices: give up writing now or pick one of your ideas and write it. Maybe this book will sell or maybe it won't, but there is no reason it needs to be your last, unless you decide to make it so.

Stop trying to second-guess the market. It's clearly not getting you any closer to actually writing something. Pick an idea you're passionate about and start writing. Try not to think about what will happen six months or a year from now when your first draft is finished. Focus on the next paragraph, the next scene, the next chapter until it's done. Then edit until it shines. Then start worrying about who to send it to.

Or quit. It's up to you.

As of right now, you've not managed to publish anything, so you are currently standing in the middle of the very thing you fear. You can remain where you are or you can start walking. Whether or not you'll find a big city has yet to be determined, but you'll never find anything if you don't move from where you're at. The more you walk, the better your odds are of finding something.

You have three stories in mind, so whatever one you finish first shouldn't be your last. You'll still have two more to continue work on. As for which one you should choose to work on now, pick the one that you're most passionate about. Anyone can come in here and say "I really think the YA novel will bring you the best chance of success," but no one can predict a thing like that and you'll know if that's where your heart is or not. You know the answer you want to hear.

I'd recommend setting a goal for yourself. Set a date that you'd like to complete your next novel by. The first draft, anyway. Then determine how many words a day and how many days a week you need to write to meet that goal. (or vise versa, figure out how much you can write each day to determine a reasonable date). Having a tangible goal can really help you see how attainable your dreams are.

Also, it's important to keep in mind that not everyone writes with the end in mind. I started with a general plot in mind, and even that has changed as my story has evolved. I write scene by scene. When I reach a point, a cross in the road and am not sure where the story is headed, I step away and do something relaxing. Pressure-free time to think. Showers are great for this. For me, staring in front of the screen pushing myself to come up with the next idea only stunts my progress. I have to step away. But my point is, just because you don't have a whole story planned out doesn't mean you can't write it.

You've written two novels already. That's a fantastic feat. You should be proud of yourself! And if nothing else, you can always self-publish them. You're two (and three partial) books ahead of everyone else who has never completed one! You got this! (There's no three rule, by the way. Maybe your forth will hit it big, but you'll never know if you don't write it!)

Forget the market. Write what excites you.

D.Owczarek said:

I know none of them is a "sure thing," but geez, why is it so hard to choose?

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I believe it was in the book Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely) that there's talk about how humans tend not to like closing doors behind us, keeping our options open even when it's clear that we're penalizing ourselves by doing so, by not committing more fully to a proven rewarding path.

At some point, though, you gotta admit you're just camping at the crossroads. So spin a wheel. Draw a card. Or walk away from writing and try something else. (This isn't an irrevocable decision; you can come back to writing later. But if this decision really has you that paralyzed... maybe you need a break from even thinking about it. Write some unrelated shorts, maybe some nonfiction, or random journalling. Maybe find yourself a writing course or book you like and work through the given exercises to improve something you don't like about your work. Or take up art or competitive knitting.)

BubbleGumBG said:

As of right now, you've not managed to publish anything, so you are currently standing in the middle of the very thing you fear. You can remain where you are or you can start walking.

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That's an awesome way of looking at it, IMO.

BethS said:

Forget the market. Write what excites you.

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QFT. This is as concise as it is accurate.

D.Owczarek said:

I know none of them is a "sure thing," but geez, why is it so hard to choose?

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Because you've got this idea that you only have one more shot, so it has to be right, and that's paralyzing.

Because writing, for you, seems to be all about publication (the goal, the reward) and not about the act of writing (the journey), and sometimes that can be paralyzing. It's helpful to love writing for the act of creation it is.

If your issue is story-telling/story-structure, maybe it would be a good idea to study up on those before starting a new project.

The only person telling you three strikes and you're out is you. The truth is, you get infinite shots. Nothing ever stops you trying again. Nothing.

You're also the only person telling yourself that you have to be published for the writing to count as worthy. The truth is, art has worth even if you stick it under the bed and never admit you made it. If writing is something you want to do with your finite life, then it is nothing short of wonderful that you have followed through on that dream. This is the life you get, and you are living it well.

Not being published only means a small batch of people didn't think they could make enough money selling your book, and the experiences of the latest Mann Booker winner proves those people are often really, really wrong.

Keep writing, keep taking shots. There is nothing that ever stops you except you. So be the real you, as hard as you can, and if that involves writing, then write.

D.Owczarek said:

I do love the act of writing, and I'm even weirder in that I enjoy editing and rewriting my words more than I enjoy getting the initial story down. But I also want to share my work, which means writing something that others will love just as much as I do. I don't feel that I'm alone in wanting to see my work published someday. I believe a large part of art is creating it for others to enjoy.

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I feel the same way. Sorry I got the wrong impression from your initial post.

All of them, but only one at a time.

It sounds like a case of Buridan's Ass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan's_ass

You can't decide between three book ideas so you end up doing all of them and none of them. You will work on book A for a while, then you will get bored. One of the other ideas will sing its siren song. So you will stop working on book A and start on book B. Until book B gets stale. You can't help looking over at the shiny gorgeousness that is book C.

Repeat, repeat, repeat until mad.

Let me tell you a secret. There is no such thing as multi-tasking. People who think they are multi-tasking are really single tasking with lots of breaks. The best way to achieve something is nearly always to focus on one thing and do it thoroughly until it is finished. Then move on to the next thing on your list.

I think you have already realised that you need to choose one of your books and put the other two on the back burner. Now you are struggling with the killer question: which of your three ideas should you choose first? The bad news is that we can't make that decision for you. We don't know you, we don't know your books, we don't know what will sell.

The good news is that it probably doesn't matter. Unless you are very very lucky, you probably won't hit fame and fortune with your first book. That's perfectly okay. You move on to book two and book three, learning all the while. So why not decide to do all three ideas, but in a particular order? Making a decision like that would move you much further on than staring at all three and doing nothing.

This would be my suggestion. Take a piece of paper and a pen. Give yourself exactly 30 minutes to make this next decision. And I do mean exactly 30 minutes. Write down what the time will be in 30 minutes.

Now make yourself a promise that whatever decision you come up with in that 30 minutes is irreversible. You will stick with it whatever happens. This is your anti-procrastination promise to yourself.

Now write down the title of your three books on the left hand side of the page. On the right hand side of the page, give yourself three blank lines. Number the lines 1, 2 and 3. Your job in the next 30 minutes is to write down your three book ideas in the order you are going to write them. And no, you can't make two of them "1=" or anything like that. One of your books has to be number 1, one has to be number 2, the remaining one has to be number 3.

How you make that decision is entirely up to you, because it doesn't matter all that much. It is much more important to be doing something rather than doing nothing. If it were me, I would probably go with the easiest idea or the idea that excites me most. Or flip a coin. Or do them in the order that you first thought of them.

If you get to the end of the 30 minutes and you haven't made a decision, then you should write the books in the order that you wrote them on the left hand side of the page. It is as good as anything. Making a decision is sometimes more important than making the "right" decision.

Ah, but you'll worry about whether you have made the right decision. Trust me on this one, it truly doesn't matter. We can rarely know the consequences of a decision we didn't take. Commit to that first book and don't give a thought to what might have been.

You might even want to frame your piece of paper and put it near to your writing desk. And when you are rich and famous, that piece of paper will make a great exhibit in the museum dedicated to your life and writing.

Best of luck.

You do not have writer's block in any sense of the word. You have "I'm not going to sit down and write block".

Write the one that makes you happiest because the plain fact is that if you don't plant your ass and write, your dream is already dead.

Hi OP,
Fair warning, I'm in the mood to strike at delusions with the sword of evening coffee without pity today

D.Owczarek said:

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The problem is, all three ideas are in different genres and/or for different audiences. One idea is a young adult adventure novel written in the first person point of view. The second is a women's fiction novel, written in the third person from a senior citizen's point of view. The third is a suspense novel, written in the third person from a young mother's point of view.

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Stephen King and Dean Koontz have books about all that, and are as writers convinced also that their books are super varied and straddle many styles, but to their readers these are simply Stephen King and Dean Koontz books. Your style, your voice, is your personal subgenre, everything else is details. If you have a personal style, that is.

D.Owczarek said:

I do like all three stories to some degree, but my very favorite idea is the one from the senior citizen's point of view, followed by the suspense novel, and finally, the YA novel. But as far as sales, I think the ideas will interest others in the exact opposite order.

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D.Owczarek said:

The women's fiction is kind of a quiet novel about relationships and learning to forgive, while the YA has plenty of action and forward motion and a quirky character to tell the tale. And while I do really like the suspense novel and the characters and the general story line I created, the idea is not fully formed and I am not sure where the story is actually going, leaving me hesitant to work on it.

Should I be working on the one tugging at my heart, which may never sell, or the one that I think has a higher probability of selling, but I'm not as enamored with, or the one that has potential, but I need to figure out where it's going before I can decide if I really like the idea, never mind anyone else?

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Once you've sold half a dozen books/short stories, then I'll believe you that you know which of your stuff "will sell" and which "won't sell". Right now all things are equal, and maybe your surreal meditation on postmodernism through the POV of a sentient hippo will be the success, not the gay vampire paranormal detective thing you believe will be the actual success.

D.Owczarek said:

Like any writer, I do hope to one day see something I wrote get published, which means writing more books down the line for the same audience, and yet I can't seem to find common ground on any of my ideas. Even the two I trunked were different genres. One was a dog memoir, and the other, a psychological suspense, not at all like the suspense I am working on now, which is more of a love story, while the last one was much darker.

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Allow me to add James Herbert and John Saul and Graham Masterton and Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury and Robert McCammon to Stephen King and Dean Koontz as names would say the same thing about their books, seemingly oblivious how to the rest of the world they look like obvious books by Masterton or Herbert, in spite of the plot and the POV details.

D.Owczarek said:

If I can (hopefully) write and sell something, what if I can't come up with new ideas in that genre? I can't figure out why I am all over the place with my writing either. I guess I'm trying to find my path, but there are just so many paths to choose from...

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There really aren't. Unless you're some sort of savant, you can't write equally well in a froompampillion genres, only in one-two. They may seem to you like they're a dozen genres, but that's because you're too close. Most likely there is one general genre you're best at, and all other ideas will inevitably be filtered through it. It's not really up to you to choose a path in this sense. It's up to you to develop/discover your style through constant writing--that's how the path will swim into focus, not the other way round.

(If you belonged to the craftsman savant elite who can easily tailor their styles to different genres, you'd be enjoying your franchise-writing career, not write this post here. Work, work, work, on personal style, style, style. Plots and characters are not what make a James Patterson book different from a Richard Laymon one or a Daniel Steel one from a Nora Roberts one.)

D.Owczarek said:

I can say the new suspense idea does have series potential, if I can just get the first one off the ground, which makes me think I should work on that one. At least I'd have a second idea to work on when its done.

Both the YA and the quiet novel have definite endings and no series potential whatsoever.

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I do not believe you. You may have brainwashed yourself about how these unwritten books are already set in stone, but you haven't brainwashed me. The moment you've written the first dozen chapters of the book--then you'll know how things stand with it. Before that you're just stating things which are not true. They are not real. Being paralyzed because of being confronted with a choice between imaginary books that do not exist is not something I would take seriously. THEY DO NOT EXIST. If they do at some point come into existence THEY WILL NOT CONFORM TO YOUR CURRENT FANTASIES ABOUT THEM.

These are phantoms you generate that keep you hemmed in. Stop feeding them. Stop imagining unwritten books as being real obstacles to real life. Go where the writing leads you; do not second guess yourself "I can't write this bit now, because in 2024 I'll be forced to fuse two chapters in my thirty-second unwritten book". Snap out of it.

And to finish, here's a meditation of mine from a few months ago, in case it might apply:

Over the years I’ve realized, that beginner writers have, consciously or unconsciously, different endgames in mind. Here are just a few:

1. Become part of a vibrant community—join writer clubs, online forums, visit conventions—a safe and clean subculture of the literate
2. Self-therapy—I will write this book or short story based in some way on my life, in order to make sense of stuff and hopefully heal myself
3. Propaganda of agenda—the world must see what I have to say!
4. Creative hobby—I’m not a boring person, in fact, I’ve written novels and stories you haven’t heard of, published by a bunch of people you haven’t heard of*
5. Respectable sideline—the gentleman amateur who annually publishes a short story in some very respectable magazine, the way he annually competes in some gentlemanly sport**.
6. A second job—use spare time to make some extra money and maybe slowly build a brand
7. A primary job—I will feed myself and my family through this, and I will therefore do what it takes to be one of the very best.

_____
*No indignation spasms about this wording please, some of my best friends are there and I'm not dissing them
**(pls provide in own brain other gender variations)


So while there’s a certain consensus of what steps the beginner writer has to go through, this consensus advice seems to implicitly accept that N6 and N7 are the goals, and are even the same goal, but at different stages, and not doing everything it takes to get to N7 is a sign of weakness, laziness, etc. (or cruel fate playing tricks and such)

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Don't give up writing. Obviously it matters to you and if you give up, it will leave a huge hole in your life. So whatever happens don't stop writing. Though we all want to be published, writing in and of itself is important.

If I were you I would go with the book you really want to write. Do the best job with it. Markets are so unpredictable.

Good luck

Good luck!

Writers block can be challenging and discouraging but I always go with the idea that you will never know unless you try. To be honest, alot of writers book's that become hits were actually ones they disliked the most. I think that our mind's can be prisons because we are our worst critic. I think you should go with the idea that flow's the best. Maybe try writing in a scenery that you can gain inspiration from. However, if you don't try, years from now you maybe looking back wishing you would have just taken the risk. Believe in yourself and your talent!