Series woes? Not really.

Here’s what I did a while back: I wrote a book with two viewpoint characters, that was supposed to be the first in a series.

Then the story went in a different direction. It was a fun direction, but either it needed a completely different ending or it needed to be a standalone novel.

So I finally figured out I needed to cut it down to a single viewpoint.

So half the book went away.

And it was really not fun to go back and recreate the missing scenes/events, because I knew how it ended & the whole process felt artificial.

Then (yesterday!) I thought of a fun twist & it started to be exciting to work on the book again. So the first half or so is done, and I have roughly half of the remaining story written. I can probably use most of that. The short version of all this is that I think I’ll finish it up in the next couple of weeks.

Of course, I could be wrong about that. Sometimes things take longer than I expect. Fairly often, actually. We’ll see how it goes.

Equally of course, there were other ways I could have gone with all this. Probably the best would have been to simply publish the standalone version (though it did need some work), and write some other book to be the first in a series. Chances are, I’d have spent less time on that overall.

But I really, really wanted to write a series. For silly reasons having to do with getting paid. And I didn’t realize (though in hindsight it’s fairly obvious) how little fun I would have trying to make that novel fit into the pattern I was after.

Anyway.

I’m back to having fun. And I have some time to do this–time not obligated in a bunch of other directions. I kind of made that time, and it involves both getting up early and closing the door (or going elsewhere) to cut myself off from my family, two things of which I’m not especially fond. But: fun! Really. It’s nice. I hope it continues.

Because that’s a thing for me. Writing is supposed to be fun. I need to get better at remembering that. When it’s not fun, it flat doesn’t work.

For me, anyway. Maybe for readers too? I couldn’t say. If the words don’t come, readers are most unlikely to show up. What would they read? Something else. Right.

So…

Have fun out there!