Second book hell. Or Hades for those of you with gentler sensitivities. First books are always fun to write. I steam right through them, creating worlds and plot and characters like a playful god. Luckily this is my third series so I know the books after #1 get progressively harder. The first time this happened I was sure I couldn't ever write another book. Now I know it's just a b*tch to get into the new book and then it gets better. Even one of my most favorite authors (Ilona Andrews) occasionally blogs about this sorta thing.
Since the first book in my Y.A. series didn't exactly follow the synopsis (do they ever?) I have a new starting point for the second tome. I always get hung up on first and last scenes because if I can see those, then the middle just happens. I don't know the last scene of this book yet, though for some queer reason I do for Book #3 (of course). So I've spent the last couple of days typing out, then rejecting opening scenes. The husband recommended an action scene, but at this point in the story there isn't much action since lots of seriously bad stuff happened at the end of Book #1. Still, I'll keep that suggestion in mind because most of the time the guy's right. As of this afternoon I think I've got something, but it's certainly not set in Jello at this point. Most of my first scenes are rewritten no less than ten to fifteen times so I have a lot more to burn through.
So for you writers out there (yes, this is an interactive blog) how do you get yourself psyched/into the next book in a series? Is there some special way you get into the zone, besides imaging what it would be like to live without the electricity bill being paid? Any special tricks, suggestions? Come on, don't be shy. You know you want to tell us.
2 comments:
As an unpublished (except for short nonfiction pieces) writer, I tend to think backwards. After recounting a brief synopsis of the circumstances of my heroine's birth in my WIP, I thought the unlikely romance of a bachelor dipolmat and a chldless widow, supporting herself as a translator, both in their late 30s, during the chaos of the 1947 partition of India, would make an intersting historical romance. (I think the previous sentence needs to be broken up.)
I like the premise. It's unusual and the time period and setting aren't regularly trodden ground.
I took yesterday off and spent the day noodling on where to go next. Sometimes I have to do that, just as long as it doesn't become a habit.
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