The Next Story

February has been an exciting month for me as an author for several reasons. One, I finished and sent off my second novel (still haven’t heard anything, in case you’re wondering). Two, the second book in the mystery series I co-author was released AND was on the New York Times Bestseller list two weeks in a row (so far)! And three, I went on a fantastic vacation week in Cozumel, where I went scuba diving every day. Can life get any better?

Now I’m back home, back to my regular life, back at the computer. It’s time to move on to my next writing project. The trouble is, I haven’t yet nailed down what it is I am going to work on. One of the problems that we writers have (I’m not the only one) is that our minds are filled with a multitude of ideas, and solidifying just one can be difficult. At the moment, I can’t decide between:

1. A novel that I started a couple of years ago and of which I’ve written over fifty pages. The story starts off in post-war Netherlands and is about a young Dutch girl who loses her mother under mysterious circumstances. Her tale has been germinating and developing in my brain even as I was writing my other novels.

Or

2. With the success of the Novel Idea Cozy Mystery Series, several ideas for other cozy series are rolling around in my head.

How am I going to decide? I guess I should play with each idea for a week, work out the characters, settings and plot lines, and see which story speaks to me the most. I’ll keep you posted…