Being within ten chapters of finishing the sequel to my first novel, I have worries and excitement practically spilling from my ears. As much as I loved writing the first book, it was such a different book from the one I'm almost finished with. I think there were more cliffhangers, a lighter tone throughout, and, honestly, the scope was drastically smaller.

This is not to take anything from the sequel, however. If anything, I would definitely say this is my passion project, the book I've wanted to write since I started writing the first book and ran out of room lest I create an epic. No, the sequel is everything I've wanted and more, full of character development and huge action sequences. I just worry that fans of the first one might find it almost too different.

Of course, I'm sure I'm not the first, or last, author to feel this way when writing a sequel. Always hearing people say, "The first one was better than the sequel," puts a touch of fear in my heart, but simultaneously I'm excited. Like I said, this book is my favorite work so far, and I wouldn't publish anything I wasn't proud of myself (And I am definitely my own worst critic).

To clarify, I'm not afraid of bad reviews, but rather letting people who loved the first one down. Believe me, I've seen my fair share of less-than-stellar reviews and try to take what I can from them. In fact, I was really happy to include an aspect of one particularly negative review into this one, but I just don't want my sequel to fall short of the mark.

What are your thoughts? Fear, dilemmas, advice, etc. are welcome. We're all friends here, hopefully.