As I wait for my agent to take a look at the latest draft of Wildergirls, I’ve been toying with the beginning of a new project. My process for the very beginning of things thus far seems to be that I get a sudden flash of the first 100 words, and then need to spend a while fleshing out the world.

I wrote the first 100 words of this nascent project and, as is instinctive for me, they came out in first person present. It’s the natural state of my voice, the POV in which I find it easiest to write. But since then I’ve been trying to rewrite them in third past.

Wildergirls is in first person present, and if the second book in that duology ever happens, that, too, will be in first person present. Is it laziness to start another project in that same POV? Or is it knowing my strengths and playing to them?

What do you guys think? Where do you draw the line between challenging yourself and making things harder without real cause?

This can apply to so many things besides POV – I have a fondness for teeth imagery, but relying too heavily on it definitely feels like laziness rather than playing to my strengths – but POV is probably where I struggle with it the most.