To those outside the writing world, that may sound incredibly strange. ("Once this is done? As in, you're already doing another one? And the first one...isn't...done?") But I have a feeling a pretty decent group of writers out there are doing the same thing as I.
On a totally different subject (that actually does tie in quite well, come to think of it - hey, it's getting late, I'm not thinking rationally and haven't had coffee in 8 hours now, so you can't hold it against me) I finished reading Belong To Me this evening. And, at the very end of the book, in a letter from the author, to be exact, I read that Belong to Me was a sequel.
What? I thought to myself. I just read this for two days, and there's a whole entire other book before this one? Humph! ('Course my next thought was, "Well I have to get that one right now!")
After I tweeted about it and then bitterly complained to my husband that I had just read a sequel and missed out on who-knows-what since I had yet to read the first one, I wondered -
1) How many writers out there do the same thing? (Start off from the very beginning knowing they are writing a series, or know from the start that they will be writing a sequel)
2) How common is it for writers to have sequels or series' in their minds as they are writing their first novel?
I had mentioned my idea (of the "next" one) to Lovemuffin, giddy and proud of myself - to which he had replied (with his usual mathematical wisdom - everything is facts, facts, facts) "Well how to you know anyone will want to read from _____'s point of view?" (The noun has been blanked to protect the innocent. Or not yet fully written, as the case may be.)
To be honest, I had actually pushed the idea aside until tonight. I do, after all, have quite a bit of work ahead of me for I'll Love You Until yet, anyway - but reading Marisa de los Santos' little note at the end told me that maybe the next one I had in mind will work, after all.
Just had to ask those questions and quickly share the little dose of enlightenment I went through about an hour ago. =)
Always sharing my love of life, writing and coffee,
coffeelvnmom (Jessica)
