The Sequel Writing Journey - Sequel Writing Woes

Ever since I published Iridescent back in July, I've been working on its sequel. I have to admit that I'm way behind schedule when it comes to this WIP, and that's something I really need to work on. This is the first sequel I've written, and that makes it a learning experience. And what better way to discuss this learning experience than in a blog post or two?

Obviously writing any story can be a learning experience. Iridescent taught me a lot. It was my first story, and the first story I've ever published. Since publishing it, I've learned that there are some areas where I can improve with my writing. Which is great. I imagine there will always be new things to learn as I grow as a writer, and I hope that I can continue to make my stories better. I'm hoping that I can take everything that I've learned from Iridescent and use it to make Coalescent even better.

But here's the thing.

Sequels are hard.

I know what I want to do with this story, but I keep getting stumped in trying to make it better than my first novel. I'm constantly feeling I'm being plagued with questions. Is the pacing going better this time? Is it too boring? How can I make sure these characters are more interesting this time around? How can I make sure that the interesting characters stay interesting and don't get boring?

Oh, and of course my very favorite question.

Does anyone besides me even want this sequel?

Ah, insecurity and self-doubt, how nice of you to pop back in again.

I'm going to be honest here. In my ideal fantasy world, Iridescent would have taken off the second I hit the publish button. Reality, though, is much different. I'm grateful to everyone who has bought a copy of Iridescent so far, and to everyone who has left a review. It really does mean a lot to me.

That being said, I think it's safe to say that this story still hasn't entirely found it's audience.

Which is fine.

These things take time and like I said before, this is all a learning process for me. Marketing a book and finding an audience for it is no easy feat. I can admit that I'm not the best with social media. I think it's probably safe to say that this blog post itself will have very few viewers. I'm still learning, I'm still trying.

But that only makes the sequel writing more frustrating.

It's hard finding motivation when you don't know if anyone is going to want to read your work. It's hard when you see other people finding their audiences and gaining fans of their work. It's easy to get jealous.

And I know the age old saying that I shouldn't compare my work and life with others. That doesn't mean that it's not an easy trap to fall into. It's way too easy to get caught up thinking 'Why isn't that happening to me?', 'Why are things going so easily for them?'. The thing is, I'm sure that these writers have their own struggles that I can't see, and that's something that I'm trying to remind myself. That, and that things will work out when the time is right.

I love my characters. Aly, Riley, and Leo in particular have invaded my mind and they're making it clear that they're not going away until I finish telling their stories. Which is good, because I do enjoy writing these characters and the adventures they go on.

So I'm going to keep writing them.

Even though it can be hard and frustrating, I'm going to keep pushing on with this sequel. I'm going to find my motivation and inspiration.

And you know what, sequel writing isn't always a frustrating mess. There are some big high points to it as well, but I'll talk more about that next week. ;)

The Fear of Bad Reviews

The closer I get to finishing Iridescent, the more nervous I get about publishing it. What if I’m not able to sell any copies of it? Or even worse, what if everyone hates it and I get flooded with bad reviews?

Bad reviews are a funny fear to have, because it’s likely that a writer will get one at some point in their career. And it shouldn’t be a surprise. We know that not everyone will love our works, even if we do wish that they could. So why is there a fear of them? Well, when you put so much time and effort into something, you want it to succeed. In a way, our characters and our stories are like our children. We created them, developed them, and watched them grow and change. The last thing we want is to see them torn to shreds.

The thing is, bad reviews really shouldn’t matter. One bad review isn’t the end of the world, and it’s extremely rare that a book is universally hated to the point where it only has negative reviews. There’s always someone who will enjoy your story.

I mean look at Twilight. Seriously, raise your hand if you’ve ever heard, thought, or said that Twilight isn’t a good novel.

Well, you’re not alone. On Amazon, Twilight has 1,774 critical reviews. The majority of said critical reviews are also one stars. That’s a lot of negativity, and frankly those critical reviews are probably more review than many of us will ever receive on one novel. And yet, overall, Twilight has a 4.6 out of 5 star rating on Amazon. Why? Because 5,984 people gave the novel a positive review and the majority of those were five stars.

Now Twilight is probably an extreme case, but it’s the book I’ve seen torn apart more than any other. The way some people act, you’d think that there wasn’t a soul on Earth who liked the series. And yet, as we all know, that simply isn’t true.

Writing a novel is hard. We put so much time and effort into them, and we want to see our stories succeed. And yet, it is so easy to get caught up in the what ifs. The thing is, we can’t just let the negatives overtake us, otherwise we’re going to take the fun out of something we love doing. We need to think positively too.

So yes, maybe someone will hate my story and yours, but there’s going to be someone who loves it too. 

Optimistic Update

Hello everyone, long time no speak!

Well it hasn’t been super long, but still. I haven’t been as active with this blog as I had wanted to be when I first started it, but I’m going to try to change that this year. So more book reviews, and hopefully other posts, should be coming your way soon. I’ve had trouble in the past of coming up with posts to write, but I have a few ideas right now and I’m going to see if I can make them work.

By the way this blog is going to be one-year-old on Sunday, which is pretty cool.

In other news, I have finally finished the first draft of Iridescent! Which means I’m one step closer to being able to publish it! It’s taken me a lot longer to get this draft done than I had wanted. I’m hoping though, that now that I have it written down and I know how I want the story to go, it should be a lot easier to write from here on out. _{I’ve probably jinxed myself by saying that.} So within the next few days, I’ll start reading my first draft and jotting down some notes, and then it’ll be off to draft number two. I’m both looking forward and dreading this, mainly because I know there are going to be some issues in it that need to be worked out. But maybe it won’t be as bad as I’m thinking.

I have also made the decision that I will self-publish Iridescent once I get it to the point where it’s ready to be shared with the world. Before I was considering on going the traditional route, but there are really no guarantees that I would be able to get published that way. Plus, I want to be able to have complete creative control over what happens in this story and the others that follow it.

Well I think that about wraps up everything that’s been going on lately.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

The other week I tried to make an iced coffee. Easy, right? Someone had told me that she had started making her own iced coffees and they sounded delicious so I had to give it a try. She said all she would do is pour some vanilla over her ice cubes, then pour her coffee on top of that, and to top it all off she would add in some chocolate syrup. Naturally, I thought with a recipe that simple there was no way I could mess it up.

Boy was I wrong.

Too much vanilla came out of the bottle, then my coffee hadn’t cooled down enough so it ended up melting my ice cubes. And no amount of chocolate syrup can rescue watered down coffee. Yuck!

It was a disaster, and if I’m being honest, I felt really bad about the fact that I couldn’t make an iced coffee. But it was something I could learn from. I know what went wrong and I know how I could improve it next time.

And really, the same thing could be said of writing. Let’s face it, we writers rarely get everything exactly right on our first try. If we did, all of our first drafts would be ready for publication the moment we finish them. Instead we find sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters that just don’t work the way we thought they would. So like many things in life, we go back and try to figure out what went wrong. And once we figure it out, we go back and tweak and rewrite until we get it the way we wanted it to be.

So if that chapter just isn’t going the way you wanted it to, don’t let it get you down. Instead, look at what’s going wrong and look at ways you can improve on it. Then give it another go!

After all, if at first you don’t succeed…

Try, try again.

Can I Do This?

I would like to be able to say that I am always 100% confident that I will be able to finish my novel, publish it, and that it will be at least somewhat successful.

Unfortunately, that would be a complete and utter lie. In reality, most of the time I’m honestly wondering if I’ll be able to do that at all. Will I actually be able to tell a good enough story that someone will be willing to publish it? If not, would I be able to self-publish it? I’m not great at using social media and talking to people, so if I did self-publish how could I even be remotely successful with it? What if everyone hates it?

I think it’s fairly safe to say that I’m plagued with way too many self-doubts when it comes to writing. And I’m probably not the only person out there who feels this way. Whenever I look at articles and blogs about publishing, so many mention that a writer’s first novel may never be published. Rejection is a huge part of the publication process. And that isn’t exactly the most encouraging thing to see when you’re working on your first novel. At times I start to wonder, am I just wasting my time? I saw that JK Rowling recently posted some of her rejection letters. Seeing that, there's that little voice screaming, "If JK Rowling was rejected, what chance do I have!?" 

The thing is, thinking like this doesn’t do any good. If I spend so much time worrying about failing, then I will fail. I’ll never accomplish anything if I don’t try. Maybe I will fail. But I’ll never know if I don’t try. This is my dream, and it’s not something I can give up on easily.

If I do fail, I can learn from my mistakes and give it another go. Because if there is one thing that I do know, it’s that I love writing. I love coming up with story ideas and the characters that inhabit them. And I am determined that this is something I want to do for the rest of my life. So I will try to prepare myself for the struggles I know will lie ahead, and to try to stay positive at the same time.

I’ll keep reading inspiring quotes of the day. That always seems to be a good pick me up! So can I do this? I'm sure gonna try!