We like to think we’re intelligent. Even though we only use 10% of our brain, and even though we still can’t spell ‘weird’ without looking it up for the sixteenth time, we human beings like to think that we’re smart, and that we learn from our mistakes.
It’s all a bunch of hooey, however. We don’t learn from our mistakes. When it comes down to it, pain, suffering, insomnia and other forms of torture don’t really have an effect on us.
Yeah, that’s right. I started writing Book II today.
Not really writing it, per se. Rather, I started laying out the plot, setting down some key scenes that need to be in there, and generally figuring out where I’m going with it. But I think I can call it Begun.
It’s not how I did the last one. After several false starts (okay, about seven false starts) I sat down and just wrote it from beginning to end. But after reading authors’ blogs and agents’ blogs and author-in-progress blogs and numerous book on writing novels, I think I’m going to try outlining it first and see if this one is any easier to write that way. I might try Simon Haynes’ software program for novel writing and see how that works for me, too.
I’m kind of kicking myself that it’s a sequel to the first book, because from everything I’ve read, agents and publishers aren’t crazy about looking at a possible trilogy from a first-time author. They want to see if the first book goes anywhere before they commit to a second or third. But unfortunately, that’s what the finished product came to be in my mind, and I have to remain faithful to that. I think that if absolutely necessary, I could rework the ending to the first book so that it could stand on its own, but I’m going to leave that suggestion unspoken unless it comes up in negotiations, because I’m happy with the ending as it is.
So wish me luck. I didn’t learn anything from the first adventure, and I’m going to embark on another one. This time, though, I’m going in better prepared.
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