Filling Time
So what does one do when taking a month away from one’s current book? (Which not only gives beta readers a stab at it but also gives you relatively fresh eyes when returning to it. Very important, in my opinion.)
“Take a break” sounds nice. But it has problems. For one thing, at least for me, the more writing I do the easier it is. Not writing for a month would mean a very hard time getting started again. I have a routine down now that I don’t want to lose. I’m not too crazy, though – I did give myself a nice few days off. I was working pretty hard on the revisions at the end and my brain needed a break before it broke.
There’s taking some time for supplemental projects: writing up background information for the web site, polishing the web site, stacking up some reserve blog posts, and so on. I haven’t let myself tinker with the web site I started last year until the draft was done. Now it’s tinkering time. (Yay!)
What I decided to do with most of the month, work on another project, is a choice that comes with a lot more choices. What sort of project? Sequel or second series? Focus on planning or start a draft?
I went back and forth on the sequel-or-completely-different question. For a while I planned on using this month to think up another series: then I’d have something in the bag if this book didn’t sell. Which isn’t a bad plan. But now I’ve decided to spend the time planning out the sequel to this book and probably writing a few chapters. Instead of looking at what if the book doesn’t get me an agent or get picked up by an editor, what if it does? In that case having a sequel figured out would be a good thing. I don’t plan to write the whole thing without knowing if it would be needed, but I’ll spend a few weeks on it. Then, when this book is completely finished and I’m sending queries to agents, I’ll start working on that second series.
Which raises a whole stack of questions of its own. Those, however, I’ll worry about later.