WHICH ONE FIRST? by Karen King

Like a lot of writers I sometimes suffer from an overload of ideas. My notebooks are full of characters and storylines that I never get time to write about and I am always working on at least two projects at the same time. And as I write for children of different ages and adults too this means the ideas can be completely different genres, ages and topics. Take my two ebooks for example, one is a children's fantasy novel and the other is a contemporary romance.




And my traditionally published work includes picture books, children’s detective novels, plays, writing courses and romance stories.
                                                      






Like now, for instance. I’m working on a fantasy trilogy for tweenagers and a series for 7-9’s which is quite enough to be getting on with you’d think. But no, the ideas just won’t go away. Creeping into the back of my mind is an idea for a YA novel, a novel for adults and there’s also a TV script I’ve been dying to write. I’ve jotted all the ideas down, of course, but which one do I write first? They’re all fighting for space in my head and shouting to tell their story so what I want to know is does this ever happen to you and if it does what do you do? How do you decide which story to write first?




Comments

Ann Evans said…
I know exactly what you mean, Karen. I've got all sorts of writing projects on the go and at different stages. But instead of getting on with those, I've just spent the last two days re-working an old favourite story of mine which is still looking for a good home. Just had the urge to tweak it a bit more and send it off with fingers crossed.
Perhaps we don't make the decisions at all. Maybe it's the characters in our stories that give us a nudge and demand attention.
Karen said…
I think you're right,Ann. One story is certainly shouting louder than the others so maybe that's the one I should go with. Good luck with your 'favourite story', hope it finds a home.
Anonymous said…
Write whichever is appealing to you the most. Go with the flow. If a story doesn't want to be written yet, it will come out better at another time.
Karen said…
Good advice, sometimes a story needs to be left to gel a bit :)