I’m wondering what course I should take next to advance my writing, hm, project? I can’t really call it a career, as I don’t work at it full time and it earns me little money.  Maybe one day.  But the question now is, which of the several things in front of me should I do?  Well, of course, I need to do them all, but which should I do first?  Which would most benefit me at this time?

Here they are:

• Atlantis novel — publish.  My Atlantis novel is complete and I have done my own editing of it.  I’d say it’s on the fourth draft by now.  I would like to indie-publish it as an ebook, just to have done it.  It needs a copy-edit, a cover, formatting, etc.  This would be the obvious next step, but as written I find myself strangely afraid of it.

• Write some short stories — selling the first Steve McCray story to Dirty Magick: New Orleans has interested me in writing short fiction again.  Urban fantasy was not previously my thing, but that story practically wrote itself.  I already have a second — no, a third! — one in the works.  And I have a few partial stories from before Katrina that I should complete.

• Grandmother Theory for Baen Books — I have a hard science fiction story, “The Grandmother Theory,” that would be a good fit for the Baen Books Jim Baen Memorial Award.  It needs to be shortened slightly and could use a polish. The contest opens on October 1st.

• Get back to Lion of the Dawn — I could get back into writing the first draft of my follow-on to my Atlantis novel, which I am calling The Lion of the Dawn for now.  This was my Nanowrimo effort two years ago and I’ve got about 60,000 words.  It has a LONG way to go, though.  Really epic.  I may split it up into two books in the end.

• Prep for Nanowrimo — I could spend the next month getting ready to participate in National Novel Writing Month again this year.  Doing Nanowrimo is fun, it’s a special time, and it also gets easier each year — unless something happens like a bad bout of the flu, or your cat’s fatal illness, which are the things that have torpedoed my efforts in the past.  Also a lot of the local genre writer’s community does it every year, so there’s a good hangout scene during the month.  This could either be a continuation of The Lion of the Dawn, or a new effort.  These evening my husband gave me an idea for a Steve McCray novel.  I could write that.

Any of these would be good.  I should do them all, but in what order?

What, in your experience, would be your suggestion?  What should I write next?

UPDATE: I forgot that life has a way of often resolving these questions without your input.  I received an invitation to submit to an anthology with a two-month deadline.  So, that pushes the third Steve McCray story to the top of the list, because it would be a perfect fit for this anthology.  It is started but not yet completed.  Have to finish writing it.  So thus my dilemma is resolved.