All the pretty voices . . .

So, my long term writing project is on hiatus for a bit. I've done a few read-thrus and I'm just about ready to let this one go off to readers. I just wanted to let it sit a bit longer and give it a final read, a final head scratch and then let it go for a while. I'm a bit reluctant to share anything with anyone. What happens if everyone hates it? Yeah, I've been over this a few times. No way of knowing if you don't let go.

Anyway, I'm trying to distract myself with something new. Or something old. I've got two promising projects that need to be finished. One is a really fun novel about a parcel of teens all out to investigate a nightclub where people check in and then don't check out . . . or do they? This was meant to be a light fun project, but it hasn't turned out that way. All my characters are angsty. They all have issues. What's worse is that I know the beginning section will need a serious amount of revision to make it all work . . .

So I have two choices I can A:

Have a major brain meltdown and carry on for a few days, inconsolable.



B.

I'll admit, before I moved to London I would have been much more likely to have gone with option A. I love a good freak out. I think sometimes the ability to break down for just a short period of time is therapeutic. Cathartic.

I actually have one other choice. I can work on another unfinished story. This is story I put down about two years ago. When I first started the story it was a 'break from another story' project. Something I meant to work on steadily and then finish. And then . . . I just stopped. Unlike any of my other projects its a YA crossover that's realistic. It takes place over the course of two turbulent weeks in one girl's life as she buries her grandmother and makes peace with the ghost of her long dead brother. It's another difficult story to write.

So, I'm torn, which project do I pick up? The one that I know needs a lot of work but is about half way finished, or the long forgotten story that is unlike anything else, a true breath of fresh air, that might be just the thing I need to shake my editing doldrums?

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

The one thing my second project has going for it is this, a room littered with paper cranes. It's a theme that runs through the book. I've been a bit obsessed with folding 1,000 paper cranes since I read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes as a kid. It was a story that broke my heart in the best way possible. This project is a little like that.

So, do I go with the cranes and the possibility of a wish? Or with the nightclub and the hope of a sizzling summer cello off (there's a duelling cellos scene-- just like in this video)?  While I decide, be sure to watch the smokin' hot cello off!