Well, there's the folder. It's where all of my stories...realized and otherwise...sit on my trusty laptop. Now that I've finished PROJECT TORPEDO I'm in the weird place where I wait for edit notes to come back, but want to move on to The Next Thing.
The identity of The Next Thing is a question mark.
There are five previous stories that I've always wanted to wrap up still sitting among the dozen or so stories that were abandoned at some point.
PROJECT CHILDREN'S STORY was started in 2013. I tried working with it a bit last night and had no passion for it. PROJECT HOTEL was started in 2006 and I'm not sure I have the heart to open that fossil back up. It's also the story I abandoned to write Mulligan. PROJECT NEWSIE is from 2014, a sequel to one of my other novels. I'm still struggling with the end for that one. PROJECT 49TH has been started and stopped four times...in '07, '08, '12, and '17. It's a fun story about radio that I can't get to take shape.
And then there's PROJECT PURPLE SKY. It started life as a possible novel two years ago, was converted to an idea for a possible comic book to present to Scott Rosema late last year, and is still simmering on a burner after being shoved aside for the novel I just wrapped up. At the moment it's the lead candidate to try and finish.
Another abandoned novel idea, PROJECT SHADOW, will stay on the scrap heap. While doing my research I discovered not just a novel but a TV show I was unaware of that follows pretty much the exact same damn concept.
There's also always the chance that something completely new will jump up and slap me. That's how the book I just finished happened: A week of weird dreams, the sort that make you wake up and email some notes to yourself. Chair de ma Chair was written that way, too.
I'm on vacation. I have some time to think about it.