With such a wide range of interests, some may wonder how I choose what my next project is going to be. Some ideas come quickly and swoop me away with it, others emerge slowly lurking in the background. When I stop and pay attention, then those ideas take form. However those ideas find you, if you’re a writer, there are a number of questions that you need to ask yourself while in search of a writing project.

Are you writing it for you or for your readers?
If you’re writing solely for yourself, then that’s okay but don’t expect it to be published. If you are writing purely for your readers, then it may get published but you will be fighting to find the motivation and inspiration to actually write the piece. While selling your work is important for writers – have to pay those bills – it still has to provide something more other than financial gain to keep you pounding away on the keyboard.

Ideally the best formula is a piece that interests you and your readers. This option will see you through those late nights of writing that can take months or even years, and still offer entertainment and quality writing for your readers, which means it has the potential to be published. When I decided to write Ghosts of Our Pioneers: Investigations into the Paranormal, I was looking for answers for my own reasons and realised that other people were asking the same or similar questions. I found this book exciting to write and it kept me researching and writing even when I was exhausted. I decided on the way it was to be presented so it would appeal to readers while they hopefully would find the answers to their questions. While I was conducting ghost tours at various locations where the investigations were held, people asked similar questions so I endeavoured to include this in the book.

What story or information do you want to tell?
It’s easy to get a little carried away and steer off track. It’s important to remind yourself what story or information your piece is about. Keep an outline of where you’re going and where you want to end up otherwise you can lose readers as well as yourself.

What will make a reader pick your book over another one?
That frustrating marketing question that publishers and agents want to know and writers hate. Nevertheless, it is an important question and as the writer you need to know. Is it the style, a unique way of telling it, is it filled with suspense or pictures? The answer is different for each book, but a cover with impact is always necessary.

Do you deliver to the reader what you promised?
The blurb on the back of the book should state accurately what is held in its pages. Every marketing piece should be truthful. Not much point promising something that isn’t there and then dealing with irate readers. If the content isn’t matching or living up to the blurb, then you have two options: change the blurb so it reflects an accurate account, or improve the content so that it’s as impressive as the blurb.

A final piece of advice: have fun! If you don’t enjoy what you’re writing then maybe you shouldn’t be writing it. I don’t mean when something challenges you as a writer, writers need to be challenged. Good luck with your writing adventure.