Now that I’m back in the writing game, I have a few decisions to make. I’m still (yes, still) finishing off editing on my first book, and I’m anticipating that it will be finished by mid-November. But at the same time – ambitious I know – I’m going to try to work on other projects. I have a couple of weeks of holiday coming up and so I have more time to focus on writing away from my day job.

But this raises a couple of questions about what to work on next. Taking the editing with me isn’t practical so I have two options – continue with my third novel, which is currently sitting at just under 15,000 words but needs some detailed planning before I continue as I’ve spent so much time away from it, or to start on something completely new.

The lure of starting a brand new project is exciting, particularly as someone suggested that I make the two main characters in Book One into series characters. This was not my original plan and so Books Two and Three are also stand alones albeit set in the same town and featuring the same police detectives, but with a different protagonist each time. If I stick with my initial plan then the sensible thing to do is to continue with Book Three.

When I decide to publish, it would make sense that if I’m making the two main characters into series characters that I have a number of books to start the series before I start to do stand alones. However, I cannot think of how to turn Books Two and Three into part of the series as neither story would suit having the two series characters as protagonists – or fit in anywhere without it feeling contrived.

So, as you can see, some tough decisions.

What would you do? Should I continue or start with a completely new idea? Answers in the comment section below as I definitely need some help!