Now that I've officially finished writing my first novel (phew, that only took twenty years!), my brain is ready to explode with new ideas.  Every one is fighting to be the next story told.  The problem is, they're all over the place: Thriller?  Check! … Mystery? Check! … Paranormal? Check! … Romance? Check! … and the list goes on.

How do I decide which one gets my attention first?  I learned with this project that I have to pick one and focus.  Otherwise, I have fifteen first chapters and nothing to show for it.  Now that's not to say that I completely ignore new ideas.  These nagging new ideas, if they are persistent enough, get anywhere from five minutes to an hour or two of outline-making, and then they are put into my hard drive for later attention.  I do this just so I don't forget the idea.

But in this burgeoning era of e-publishing/self-publishing, I have to decide – do I pick my stories based on marketability?  Do I look for ideas that can easily turn into series?  Or do I just pick the story that seems the most fun to write?

The business woman in me says, “Pick the one that's most marketable!  Pick the one that can be a series!  Stay in the same genre for the rest of your life!”  The writing for fun woman in me says, “Do the one you like the most at the time!”  Who should win?  Business-me or Writer-me?

My first novel, Wrecked, is my first finished novel because it was the story that wouldn't let me go to sleep at night.  It's the story that floated into my mind when I was in a waiting room.  Any waiting room.  It's the story that stayed with me for nearly twenty years.  I didn't really want to start with this one because it's not in the paranormal genre which is my favorite genre to read; but the story had a mind of its own.  In the end, it was not for me to decide.

But I think now it is time for me to decide.  (And dammit all if it wasn't so much easier of a decision to make when the story was making it for me.)

Any suggestions?