Does anyone else have trouble picking a musical direction and sticking with it? It's part of the reason I've had so much trouble actually getting in a decent band and getting things done, I can never decide what genre to play. Music is so eclectic that I find it hard to focus on one "project" before something else strikes my fancy.

My guitarist friend wants to play prog rock with me, my other drummer friend wants to play Doom metal (which I'm totally down for) and personally I've been writing some really sweet black metal riffs/lyrics so I kind of want to start a bedroom BM type thing on my own.

I just can't decide where to go and until I become an established musician (if I ever do) I don't have the resources to be stretched so thin across so many projects.

You should never really pick a musical direction. That pigeonholes you in that place, and could make it tougher to expand your sound later on.

You should simply play whatever sounds good to you. Don't worry about what genre it is. Just play what you compose and what you love.

I know exactly what you're talking about. Two months ago I wrote 3 unfinished old school style Thrash songs. Before I could even record them I thought "Hey, I got a really cool idea for an Ambient Black Metal song with overlength" and started to write it. At that time I was in a nostalgic Hard Rock mood, so you might have guessed already, I was beginning to write an old fashioned Heavy Metal/Hard Rock crossover song (something in the vein of Quiot Riot, Skid Row etc.). Yesterday I was just playing around on my guitar and thought "Hmm, that would make a nice Blues song, huh?".
So in the end, I've got like a bunch of unfinished songs over here and right now I'm thinking about composing something that combines them all, like blackened Thrash/Crossover with bluesy solos or something.

You know, I had a similar problem until I decided one day to stop worrying about it.

Don't worry about what genre you are or whether or not all the music "fits" with each other, just go ahead and write. There's no reason a prog band can't have some doom sounding tracks or vice-versa. Just keep writing, people will appreciate your band's versatility. Let your genre find you, not the other way around.

Having this problem is alot better than being stuck in a creative rut playing only one style of music. I usually go from playing old school melodic death metal to blackened thrash to power thrash to prog, hard rock and so on, just depends on mood. Some times I like to zip with sixteenths at 200+ and other time's I like slamming out a catchy groove. Just play what you feel!

I just compose what I love. My influences go from Impaled Nazarene to KISS. I think if you do this and just compose and play music that you are able to, then you begin to develop a certain sound to it yourself, if you know what I mean.

If I'm with others I can usually make-up lines for parts just based on what I hear. I just mold my playing to the idea around me and find a place to fit with a riff I like. I never really "try" to pursue a genre when writing my own stuff either. I just pursue the sound. If it fits a genre, so be it, if it doesn't, well...I don't know what that means...

precisely, pursue the sound and the vibe, not the genre.

Play whatcha like.
I play bass in a hardcore punk band, guitar in a crust/grind band, I have a bedroom black metal project, and I kinda started an interpol/joy division/mbv type band recently.

Make like 30 side projects with 666 session members and kill them all during the recordings.

You should experiment with several sounds before choosing what genre to play. I myself experimented with melodic death, black, thrash, doom, symphonic, and brutal death before finding what I am best at, which is kind of a melodic death and black fusion.