Hello everyone! I'm trying to move onto the second novel of my fantasy epic series now that book 1 is ready to go to a line editor I have booked for January, but I'm feeling very overwhelmed by it. I wrote a spin-off novella for one of the side characters in the fall while the novel was with my developmental editor and the words just flew out for that little side project so I had hoped I would be able to dive into book 2 in the same way. Maybe it's just that I haven't really given myslef a breather to not be writing since I decided to pursue self-publishing a series. Not to mention the slog matketing on social media can be. Has anyone else experienced something similar? What did you do to nurture your writing and world?

  • Book two needs to do a couple of things.

    1. Pull the characters and the readers from book 1 into the story of the broader series.
    2. Foreground any unresolved threads used to hook book 1 into the rest of the series.
    3. Amplify the stakes over what they peaked at in the first book.
    4. Introduce the long term story in a more concrete way than you could in book 1.

    Any planning and outlining done for b2 and beyond should be done with all this stuff basically front and center while you're working on it.

    parent

    That's a great list! Definitely will consider it with my outline

    parent root

  • What happened in Book 1? There should be something that needs to be resolved in a second book.

    CES

    parent

    Definitely things need to be resolved and I have an outline for everything that needs to happen. It's just when I sit down to write, even though I know what I need to write, nothing comes out. I've come to the conclusion it's more of a mental health issue as I've been constantly doing some kind of writing/editing for like a year without offering myself any kind of break, so I'm putting it on hold until the new year ❤️

    parent root

  • I'm done with outline and notes, just need to pound out a cringy rough draft (hope to do it during this christmas new year week)

    My feelings on World Build is.... Just do enough to get the story going. Additional World can be added as the story dev. "Just do enough" World Build is different for different people.

    If you're blocked for the 2nd book, you could try to make a huge list of all the ideas you like. Make a list of all the movies you like. Something should be combining to give you something good.

    parent

    That's a great brainstorming idea!

    parent root

  • There is no writers block just follow your outline

    parent

    I'm definitely very grateful for my outline, it's more actually sitting down to write, even with a good plan. I've decided to give myself a writing break until the new year, kind of coming to the conclusion that burnout is creeping up on me as it's been around a year that I've been doing some kind of constant writing/editing and I haven't really given myself permission to take a break.

    parent root