The enthusiasm level is what chooses next to write.

It took me 4 days to write the first 30K words of "Fateplay." (I've gone back to this title, rather than "Time In/TimeOut, because I like the sound of it.)

It's taken me 23 days to write the next 30K words.

I'm feeling my way and it's slow. I've spent entire days just trying to eke out 1000 words. I'm not writing until something clicks, but I'm also not letting up until something clicks. But I'm sticking to it, I'm going to finish. At 60K words it's a "book" even if I just tack on an ending.

After my initial excitement, I've cooled on its prospects. I still like the book quite a lot, but there are a couple of problems built into the beginning that if I had it to do over again, I'd change. I've even thought of simply putting it aside and re-writing it with what I know now, but boy would that require a lot of discipline.

Does the book have enough heft to warrant that treatment? That is, would it significantly improve the story?

I dangled this idea with an agent and a publisher--100 "kick-ass" pages. No response. So that let a little of the steam out of my enthusiasm. If the book is for my own amusement, then I like it fine the way it is.

There are some thematic questions the novel raises that I don't really address, that if I was to do the end-to-end re-write I would be very conscious of. It would lend the novel some depth, but I'm not sure depth is what I'm after. I'm after fun and entertainment.

If I was going for depth, my model would be more "Brave New World" than "Ready Player One." I wikied BNW and was amazed by how little of the plot I remember. (Finding that to be true to a ton of novels--I remember almost nothing about them even though I know I've read them.)

As I always say, I discover plot by writing. Which means I often go down wrong roads and have to make up for it. Sometimes that works out fine, sometimes I write myself into a corner.

The other possibility that my re-write ideas are significantly different enough to warrant an entirely different novel altogether. A novel that would deal with the same subject (cosplay and Larping) but in a totally different direction.

With any novel there is a certain amount of enthusiasm for me to carry through to the end. I've started several novels that lost steam along the way and were abandoned halfway to two-thirds of the way through with the thought I'd come back to them. I never do.

The enthusiasm level is what chooses what to write. I never know until I've finished one book which idea I'll be most enthusiastic about next. I have at least three or four ideas that I think are strong enough for the next book. But I probably won't know which one I'll do until it starts appearing in my brain.