Planning out my second book - but the ideas are slow to come

I've been turning my thoughts to what my next book should be, now that Smugglers at Whistling Sands is selling as an ebook on Amazon. Should I write a sequel to it, or branch off in a completely different direction? Or maybe I should do both.

I feel a desire to write a sequel and bring back my characters, Jack aged 12, brother David, 11, sister Emily, 10, and their 12-year-old headstrong friend Lou to Abersoch for another adventure of some kind. But I'm also yearning to write a book aimed more directly at the adult market - in fact two for adults. One about a guy who is fed up with his life in increasingly insufferable modern Britain and another, a thriller of some sort or even one with a paranormal theme or something.

So I'm feeling torn in different directions, and they all seem to be sort of cancelling each other out, since until I settle on one or two clear themes, it is very difficult to map out a clear plot.

On that note, some people of course just get writing and allow the action to unfold on the screen in front of them. Its great to allow inspiration to just carry you along and we are all different, but I believe strongly in knowing where you are going with a story first - who is in it, what you think will happen to them and what sort of ending you envisage there will be.

That was my approach with Smugglers at Whistling Sands. I knew that meeting adventurous Lou would be the catalyst for the other rather boring kids to escape from beneath the wing of mum and dad and be dragged along on an adventure. I was aware of the subplot involving Lou's less than happy home life - the soft underbelly to an otherwise tough female character.

There is more I want to say about all of them and more that I think they could do together, and they do rather live in my head now. So as I'm typing this I am rather thinking out loud and feeling that it would be good to get them back together again for a sequel. And it would be nice to give all my readers so far the opportunity to get to know them all better and share another adventure with them.