Settling on the Right Idea

We're most likely all guilty of starting books or series and dropping them. I started three different series before settling on my current one. When I was younger, I randomly wrote first chapters to ideas all of the time. I could almost have an entire book written of first chapters from my past.

This is completely normal and necessary. There is no magical way of knowing if the booking your working on will be the one you devote yourself to for years. The reason is simple. When you write a first chapter, you're excited and you're so sure this is your masterpiece.

So, how do you know if you should stick with your idea or not? Many people probably have different rules or ideas about this. The information I'm sharing is my personal experience. The story of how I started my current series is kind of weird. I was writing another book and I was actually pretty far in. I started to doubt it, then one day I said to my friend I should start a new series. Since she was starting on a new book as well, she told me to go for it, so that we could be in the same position.

I started my book from a freakishly relaxed place. Honestly, I didn't think it would last. This freed me to do something absolutely insane. I had fun. I didn't feel burdened by word counts or those silly little things we all antagonize ourselves about. I just created these characters that I loved, created a plot, and let them tell me their story. At some point, I realized that I always wanted to feel like that when I write.

If you don't have fun writing your book, then make it fun for yourself. You can make the moments however you want, you can put any of your characters together, and the story can go wherever you want it to.

I read something somewhere once and it said, "Writing your first draft is like telling the story to yourself". So make yourself laugh and make yourself sad. Choose an idea that you think you would love to read. You're writing an adventure for others to read, but you are the first one to take it. Now, go, put everything you love and some of the things that entertain you and remember to have fun!