Indecisions

I’ve been wanting to get started on writing something new but I keep running into a wall of indecision. Aside from still combating the “what’s the points“, I also just don’t know what I want to write. It’s not a lack of ideas but I lack of firm commitment.

1. Finish Nighthawk– This was a sci-fi series set on a military starship written in an episodic style. Each episode followed a different crew member. I had written 12 of them and have previously released those via my experiment with Amazon’s Vella service. I’m not sure I like where I ended up as it deviated a little from what I imagined when I started the project. That’s muddied my desire to continue. It could be reworked but I feel a full restart would be necessary to not run into the same problem.
2. Fantasy Series- I’ve wanted to try my hand at fantasy for awhile. Knightshield kind of is in that genre (waiting on cover art to release this one) though not your high fantasy. I can’t settle on a setting, magic system, or story.
3. Sky pirates on a gas giant- This is a setting I’ve imagined for awhile that involves islands floating in a breathable layer of a gas giant. I really liked the idea when I first envisioned it, but then I discovered it was far from original. I hadn’t read anything in this kind of setting, and I have no illusion about any idea being truly unique. Then I read Jim Butcher’s Cinder Spire and looked further and there are quite a variety of video games, RPG’s, and books with some variant on this. Doesn’t mean I can’t do it but it took the wind out of the sails.
4. Victorian murder mystery- Read a lot of recent books in this general setting so have toyed with trying it out. It is something completely different than I’ve ever tried to write before so that is appealing in and of itself. Even started one. Have a character and a setting. But not sure on the mystery. Which is fairly important.
5. Dragons-  there is a lot of love of dragons in our house. Just discovered the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik which is a perfect mix for me. Dragons that are also kind of sailing ships? Problem I run into is every idea I have feels derivative. Which again, all ideas are to some extent. But I haven’t yet identified what kind of story I actually want to tell.
6. Youth fiction- I’ve also toyed with the idea of trying something geared toward young adult/teen fiction. This could merge with any of the other setting ideas but also kind of wanted to explore something at least initially grounded in our world. But this is more of a passing desire than any real ideas.
7. Realistic Fiction- When I was toying with the AI writing systems, I explored an idea where an AI helps a guy write and become famous, all the way to getting elected president. Then the AI abandons him after he gets a law passed that allows AI to keep the copy right for their own work. It was very meta. Then I’ve toyed with more grounded stories that are real social commentary. But every time I try that it always feels heavy handed. Sometimes that’s necessary but when I try it, I just feel its eye roll inducing.

So, as you can see, no shortage of ideas. Just no firm commitment to anything. They all appeal but nothing’s stuck.  I might try a shotgun blast approach and just start writing something on here. No preplanning and just see where it goes. It would be ugly but might be a kick start. Who knows.