A-Z: Indecision

After blogging about Hamlet on Saturday, it seems natural to discuss indecision. ;)

I don't consider myself an indecisive person. When I went shopping for my wedding dress, it only took me one session at one store to find it. I had gone there looking for a specific dress I saw in a magazine, but when I tried it on, it didn't suit me. After a few more dresses, the salesperson brought me a dress with light blue crystals that laced up the back, and I immediately knew that was the one. I tried it on, liked what I saw, and ordered it. I didn't regret giving up my first favorite dress, and I didn't second-guess myself by paging through more bridal magazines.

Trying to decide what route to take with my writing career is a more difficult choice. Twinned Universes is in the hands of two crit partners from the online workshop I belong to. I'm hoping they won't find too much to change, because I'm at the point where I've taken it as far as I can go on my own. I need to get it out of the door and move on to a new project. However, I've also written a novella-length prequel to Twinned Universes; I'm currently revising it to make sure they're consistent. I think that story is worth sharing too, but so far, I haven't found many potential markets for it. Even if I did sell it, I'm not sure how that would affect Twinned Universes. Would the audiences overlap? Should I just try to find an agent for my novel and then worry about the novella? Would it be worth using the novella as a teaser for the novel? Or should I self-publish both? Are they really ready for submission or publication?

Weighing the pros and cons of self-publishing versus traditional publishing could be a separate post in itself. With recent examples of authors who move from one format to the other, the two types of publishing are no longer mutually exclusive. (Of course, that may be more true for best-selling authors than mid-list ones.) Ultimately what the choice comes down to is deciding what I really want from my career and which path is most likely to get me there. I'd like to say that finding readers who appreciate my work is most important, but is that enough? It would be nice too to get some validation from the general speculative fiction community, and that's more likely to happen if I go with a traditional publisher. Each side has strengths and weaknesses, and I need to weigh them carefully before I can move forward with confidence.