Problems with Series Books

Working On: New outline
And cover questionaire for Wolf's Pack


Alright, this is only because I was reading a couple of reviews for Mate of the Wolf where the writers spoke about a possible sequel, but I did write one, and Siren did accept it :) Their e-mail stated a possible release date of somewhere in September, give or take.

The thing about that was, I did leave the other story a little open, but that's just because it can be so difficult to cram everything into a 20,000 word story. The original first draft for MotW was only about 14,000 words. The draft I sent to Siren for the sequel is a little over 30,000, and with how I left that ending, the third book is looking to be even longer, with the possibility of a fourth, and because I've been messing around with side characters, there's the chance for spin offs as well.

So much for novellas, eh Elena? I tried ...

Anywaaaay ... even though I had no original intention of making a group of books out of this one story idea, I always in my mind had a couple of scenes for a possible sequel, and I always knew how it would all fit into place if I did it. Because I've had people mentioning the possibility, I just got it over with and wrote it.

But for the third book, I've got none of that, and I'll have to get new research done. Apart from also having two outlines in the works for two completely different books, I'm thinking it will be a lot longer before the third book comes out compared with how fast it was between the first and second. I'm not talking years or anything, but just longer.

All that info shoved in your face leaves me wondering: How do people who write series books all the time deal with this? I'm halfway freaking out over one or two other books, that are really just long-ish novellas, but for the bigger guys like J.R Ward, Josh Lanyon, Nora Roberts etc etc etc etc ... they must have, not only some serious commitment, but also a lot of faith in where their books will take them, because I know not everyone can do a Geroge Lucas or J.K Rowling and plan out six to seven books before bothering with penning the first.

Most writers have to struggle with not getting bored halfway through writing ONE book, never mind writing seventeen of them (You know who you are)

What's done is done at this point. Even though I haven't got a contract in for it yet, and I'm only going through the questions for the cover art, I imagine that when the contract comes, it'll probably have a clause or something in there asking for the third book in a timely manner. Even if it doesn't, for whatever reason, the ending of Wolf's Pack makes it pretty obvious there's more on the way. With or without a contract, I've made a commitment to my readers (few that there are ^^;) to write the rest in the coming series.

But for those of you who hate series' that are ten books+ long, this won't be that long. At this point I'm thinking *maybe* four if things can't get wrapped up in the next book, which they likely won't. Five books max.