This is one of those problems nobody sympathises with, which makes it worse for the people who have it. Tell a non-writer that you have twelve ideas and can't finish any of them, and they will tell you how lucky you are to be so creative. Tell another writer, and there’s a decent chance they’ll say the same thing, because the writers who struggle with the opposite problem would happily trade.
In practice, it doesn’t feel like abundance at all. When I ask people on discovery calls what their biggest roadblock is, this comes up constantly: I have a lot of ideas, but I don’t know how to make them work together, or which one to commit to, or how to stop new ones arriving the moment I start.
So this is how I’d approach it, in the order I’d approach it!
Stop choosing your favourite
The standard advice is to write the idea you love most, but there’s something to be said against this.
The idea you love most is usually the one you have been carrying with you the longest. It has had years to become perfect in your head, which means it has had years to become impossible to write badly, and every first draft is written badly. That project carries the most fear with it, and fear of ruining something is one of the most reliable ways to never start it at all.
I've watched writers circle or rewrite a beloved idea for a decade while finishing nothing, and then I've watched the same writers finish a draft of the idea they described as the fun one, the silly one, the one I'm not precious about in just a few months. Writing the fun one taught them enough to eventually write the beloved one well and finally finish it.
ALSO: Why You Will Never Finish Your Novel
Ask which idea you can say the most about
The test I use instead is this: sit down with a timer and give each idea ten minutes. In that time, write down:
- Who is in it and what they want
- What is standing between them and that
- What they believe that the story is going to challenge
- Roughly how it ends, even if you hate the ending you come up with
The idea you can answer those four things for is typically the furthest along, regardless of how you feel about it. Excitement will fluctuate week to week, and it doesn’t exactly correlate with whether a project is ready. However, being able to describe the shape of a story tells you a great deal more!
If two ideas tie, pick the one with the smaller cast and the shorter timespan. A first finished draft is worth more to you at this stage than the most complex and ambitious one.
Park the others for good, and I mean for good
A lot of the inability to commit comes from a fear that the unchosen ideas will evaporate if you stop looking at them. As long as they live in your head, they have to keep interrupting you to prove they still exist, which is why they always seem most brilliant the moment you sit down to work on something else.
So make sure you establish somewhere permanent for them to live. Always have a dedicated notes document for each project that you can access easily (from any device, otherwise you’ll find yourself making notes on your phone and never transferring them over).
When an idea pops up, thats fine! Let it, and note it down. But also learn to be okay with postponing that and prioritising your current project. I keep mine in a Notion database, but a single document works perfectly well as long as it’s somewhere you’ll find it again.
If you want my ultimate Notion organiser, I’d be remiss not to plug it here.
Set a deadline (but one that has nothing to do with quality)
Deadlines built around quality are unenforceable, because quality is a matter of opinion and yours will change with your mood or the book currently reading.
Chapter three by the end of the month is enforceable, but maybe ten thousand good words by the fifteenth isn’t. You’ll just get overwhelmed by the quality and not even try to finish.
I’d also keep the first commitment short!
Six weeks is long enough to get past the honeymoon stage of a new project and short enough that it hopefully won’t feel overwhelming to you. At the end of the six weeks, just reassess. But ideally you’ll be reassessing with real pages in front of you rather than with vibes and well wishes for your project.
ALSO: The Part-Time Writing Schedule
What to do when the shiny new idea arrives
It will arrive. It usually arrives somewhere around the point where the current project stops being fun or hits a snag, which for you, is probably around the same point every project stops being fun, which… should tell you something.
The new idea only looks more brilliant because it’s newer, has so much potential, and doesn’t yet have any obvious problems (because you haven't written enough of it to discover any), and your brain is offering it to you as an escape from the difficulty you’re currently sitting in with your main project, which requires effort you probably don’t want to put in.
What I do, and what I tell clients to do: this is where your parking lot documents come in handy, so you can write down your idea in detail, for twenty minutes. Give it the full attention it’s asking for! But then close the file and go back to the main project. Almost every time, those twenty minutes take the pressure out of it, and if they don’t, if you’re still thinking about it in three weeks…
Maybe switching is the right call
I'm not an absolutist about this. Sometimes a project truly is wrong, and pushing on with it out of stubbornness will just end up wasting you a year, and you’ll be none the wiser.
There are signs I would encourage you take seriously.
For example, if you can’t answer what the book is about after a hundred pages, or if you’ve changed the premise three times and none of the versions excite you anymore, or if you’re full-on avoiding writing sessions rather than finding them difficult from time to time.
But there are also signs that I wouldn’t take as permission to switch so easily!
For example, if the middle is hard — newsflash, it always is. Or maybe your prose feels worse than it did in chapter one and you feel like you’re writing like a middle-grader (it’s just an off-day and happens to everyone!). Or maybe you’ve read a published book in the same genre and want to throw yours in a bin. Let that feeling pass.
All three of those are the normal experiences of drafting a novel, and every writer I know, including me, has mistaken them for a sign to give up at some point.
Ideas multiply while they stay unwritten.
That’s the part most writers don’t really clock: their unwritten idea splits and grows and generates spin-offs, because your brain is enjoying itself. But when you commit to one and write it down, it might shift your brain into a different gear, meaning it will be more focused on one direction instead of thinking that idea generation is all it’s good for because it’s all you’ve ever used it for.
If you want a structured place to develop the one you pick, and somewhere solid to leave the other eleven, my free Novel Planner is built for this!
FAQ
How do I choose which book idea to write first?
Pick the idea you can describe most completely: who’s in it, what they want, what’s in the way, and roughly how it ends. Enthusiasm changes week to week, but a well-developed idea is easier to finish.
Is it bad to work on two writing projects at once?
It works for some writers, particularly when the projects are at different stages, such as drafting one and editing another. Drafting two first drafts at once tends to slow both down, because drafting requires holding a whole story in your head.
What should I do with writing ideas I'm not using?
Write each one up properly on a single page, including what you love about it and what you haven't solved, and keep them all in the same place.
How long should I commit to one project before giving up?
Six weeks of consistent work is usually enough to get past the initial excitement and see what the project is really like. Reassess after that with pages in front of you rather than deciding mid-week when a scene is going badly.
Why do I keep getting new ideas when I start writing?
New ideas often arrive at the exact moment the current project becomes difficult, because a fresh idea has no problems in it yet. Noting the new idea in detail and returning to the draft usually releases most of the pressure.
