A labor of love that consumes the soul

So I am a bit conflicted today as I sit down to think about the next project. While some might see this as the opposite of a problem, I see it differently. Maybe it is just the fear inside all writers; the self-loathing; the doubt; the imminent rejection that we all face, but there are two projects I have in the works and something compelled me to write a bit about the second last night and not the first.

Some might say, shut your pie hole and enjoy that there are two projects which you find compelling enough to have already developed some of the basics. The conundrum I face is this:

Project one is a more mainstream concept. It was originally developed as "Hammer's Redemption" I didn't like that because I did not think it would be something people would understand as a concept based on title alone. That was an idea I came up with about three years ago, but it languished as I considered my last two books. Those books made me look deeper and darker at the world, my place in it and why it was we faced these issues.

Project two is more a return to a darker subject matter. I find that there is a lot of anguish and conflict that can help us resolve our own real-world fears within those dark tales. I have this hope that those type of works are rooted much deeper and are considerably more profound; but I know that works like this take time for people to find and appreciate. In today's world, everyone wants instant gratification and no one wants to hear "you suck as a human and here is why" just platitudes and gratuitous ass-kissing will suffice.

My problem is that I wonder if my more mainstream project keeps getting pushed back out of fear, or for the right reasons. Am I pushing away from more mainstram out of fear? Or is there a reason that the other concept grabbed me by the balls and said 'shut the fuck up and write about me?'

I do not know. A part of me wants to force myself to write about the football story. I want to challenge myself, but I get conflicted. Can I write mainstream? Can I tell a story like that? Or am I limited to writing the darker side of the human psyche?

Questions all valid. I am considering forcing myself to do a little of both at a time. 1000 words of each before I move back and forth. Something, anything to break this cloud.

That is the thing, as writers, we face constant rejection. each word. Each sentence. Each paragraph. We reject ourselves, then we set ourselves up for outside rejection.

A labor of love that consumes the soul.