OK. I’m getting a bit annoyed with the lack of a decision on the next novel project. As are you, I’m sure. So I’m this close to doing something I promised myself I’d never do again: I might embark on a sequel.
I’ve done this once before, with Petra Released. Though I was pleased with the result, I later realized with some chagrin that I had just spent a year working on a novel I couldn’t market unless the original sold. That struck me as a, shall we say, suboptimal use of my time and energy. After that, I made a deal with myself—no more sequels until a publisher or editor expressed an interest in the original.
Makes perfect sense, right? But here’s the thing: I don’t have anything else firing my imagination at the moment. (In fact, this was the reason I wrote Petra Released in the first place.) Maybe the reason that no other stories are popping into my head is that I still have these sequels to do, and they’re taking up the necessary brainspace. Given a choice between writing something unmarketable and writing nothing at all . . . that’s kind of a no-brainer, isn’t it?
I haven’t committed to the sequel just yet. I have one more idea I think I’d like to explore a little bit more before I make my choice.
Right, then. Come next week at this time, The Decision will be announced. Which, I suppose, is almost but not quite as exciting as that other Decision from a few years ago.
Write Club updates:
Just over two months to a personalized no from an agent on a novel query.
And 31 days to a tier 1 bounce from Uncanny.
‘Til next time, kids . . .
