Book 1 is finished, now it's on to Book 2

Which is easier said than done.

There are writers out there, I am told, who can churn out books with the greatest of ease. Three thousand words a day, first draft done in a month, revisions completed by the end of Month 2. Then they wrap it all up and top it with a bow.

On to the next book.

wooHOO!

wooWHAT?

The smartest thing I ever did was take a typing class in high school. I can type like the dickens to this day.

I don’t consider myself to be a slow writer. I wrote The Death Wizard Chronicles, my six-book epic fantasy for mature audiences, in three years. This included six first drafts but also about ninety total revisions. So, I’m no Dean Koontz, but I’m no James Joyce either. (Joyce took more than fifteen years to write Finnegans Wake.)

For a variety of reasons too boring to mention here, several years passed between when I traditionally published The DW Chronicles and self-published Do You Believe in Magic?, book 1 of my middle grade epic fantasy series titled Dark Circles. I wrote the first draft of Do You Believe in Magic? several years ago, then put it in the trunk—as Stephen King likes to say—and worked on other projects.

About three months ago, I pulled the book out of the trunk and revised it about fifteen times, which improved it immensely, IMO. Then I recently self-published it. Now the game was on. When you’re publishing a series, Book 1 is no good without a Book 2 and 3 and 4, etc. (Or in George R.R. Martin’s case, a Book 6. But that’s a subject for another day.)

My grand plan was to begin writing Book 2 today. It will be called Do You Believe in Monsters?. (You get the way the titles play off each other? Aren’t I clever.) In the meantime, I purchased an outlining software and began to intricately detail the plot and characters, chapter by chapter.

Outlining software proved to be more helpful than I had expected.

In the past, I’ve definitely been a panster (seat of your pants, for those few who might not know what this means), even when it came to writing for newspapers and magazines. I was great at doing all the necessary research and then organizing as I went along, but not so great at putting this all into a pre-write outline.

Surprise!

The plotting software helped more than I thought it would. It also inspired me. On May 21, eleven days ahead of my self-imposed deadline, I wrote the first words of book 2. As of May 31, I was at 17,506 words. Again, no Koontz but a good deal faster than Joyce.

If I keep up this pace, I’ll be at 70K by the end of June and finished with the first draft by mid-July. My goal now is to publish book 2 by mid-September.

Then … on to book 3, which should be available by the end of the year.

Word count is like a friend who constantly needles you to get a job done. I write every day and don’t allow myself to stop until I’ve reached 1,500 words. Two thousand is even better. I don’t think I’ll ever be the type who can churn out 3,000 to 5,000 words a day, but as long as I remain true to my own routine, magical things are sure to happen. In a race between Koontz, Joyce, and me, I would surely finish second.

Are you a fast writer? Slow? Somewhere in between like me?

I’d love to know.

(This post is a little under 600 words, in case you were wondering.)