Between teaching, parenting, and everyday life, your writing time is limited, which makes choosing the right novel idea feel surprisingly high stakes. If you’re stuck between too many possibilities, this post will help you sort through the noise, clarify what matters most, and pick one story to begin.

Your novel ideas aren’t scattered because you’re disorganized — they’re scattered because you’re writing in the margins of a very full life. Sticky notes, Google Docs, random notebooks… it all counts. Here’s the simplest way to gather everything into one place so you can finally move forward with your novel.

Writing a novel can feel lonely fast, especially when you’re trying to figure everything out by yourself. But willpower isn’t what gets most writers to the finish line. Support is. In this post, I share my number one tip for novelists: find your people and stop writing alone.