A writer’s brain is a crowded place.  It’s filled with characters and voices, places and themes.  When I finish a book or a poem, I feel like I’ve let some of them out and made some space.

I’ve cleared my head, if just for a moment.

For a while, there’s been five distinct story lines going on in my head, four of which have actually been started on paper.  There’s actually been quite a bit more than that but I say five because those are the ones that are reoccuring.  Those five are the ones I could speak out loud as a story practically from beginning to end.

For that reason, I’m torn.

I’m eager to put them on paper, but I don’t know which one deserves more attention right now.  Which one of them is destined to be my next book?

One of them is completely done on paper, for the most part.  I wrote it in 2007, but since then the characters have evolved and need to be edited.  For now, their lives, their story sits on a ream of 8.5 x 11 paper in the bottom of my closet like a shoebox filled with forgotten things.  But I don’t feel connected to them the way I should.  I don’t feel like they should be next.  Maybe I’m wrong?

I’m torn.