Twenty-two weeks after the first day of the second new year

Author and Sister have received samples of the paperback of their soon to be released book. It’s feels a bit surreal, Author has to say, to suddenly hold a physical book, after all the time she has spent looking at it on a laptop screen. One of these paperbacks now stands beside Oracle’s Hunt, the first book in the Oracle series, and The First—Author’s first book—and, well, yes, surreal is the right word. Even now, even though this is Author’s third book, it just doesn’t seem real. Perhaps when the book is released. As for when that would be, that’s Sister’s to determine. Now that she knows the publication formats are ready, she can finally finalize her preparations for the book launch.

What does seem increasingly real to Author is her next book for you. Author is moving on to it, to the next story. Note that she isn’t saying that she has moved on, but that she is moving on. The transition from finishing one story to working on the next isn’t immediate this time, which makes sense, she supposes, since her mind had been in that previous book for so long. In the two previous books, in fact, the two first books in the Oracle series. One you’ve seen, Oracle’s Hunt, and the second one in the series is the one that’s being published soon. Author has spent quite a bit of time with the Oracle series so far, and it’s not easy to step away, go in a different direction.

And a different direction it is. The next book is not part of the Oracle series, but the start of a new one. Still suspense, of course, just a different setting, a different life, a completely different story. Author knows already what it’s about because she has a draft. A preliminary one, but still. It was something she had begun to write, not entirely sure where it would go, but then it reached a point where she knew it could, would be a book. She had to put it aside, back then, it wasn’t its time. It is now. Very much so.

Much to be done there, though, until it can be published. When Author said she only had a preliminary draft, she meant it. At least what she considers to be preliminary. This new book, her next book for you, needs work. Author has prepared for that, as you know. She has mentioned, while she was still finalizing the publication formats of the soon-to-be-published Oracle book, that she has made sure she would have what she needs to move on to the next book without unnecessary delays. Some background-related info, research preparations, and some other things she wanted to brush up on before she proceeds—after all, the learning never stops.

That’s good to do, move on as soon as you can. It’s best if you immerse yourself in your next book. No, you’re still not likely to let go of the previous one—as Author has observed in last week’s post that’s not likely to happen any time soon—but adding a new story to your mind, diving into a new reality and meeting the people in it and helping them with the challenges they face, that’s best. It has the benefit of keeping you busy, because, frankly, it’s not easy to remain calm when the publication of a book is pending, when a new story of yours is about to make its way to the scrutiny of others. Keeping yourself busy with the next one, that’s a good key to making it through.

A tip? Let’s see. How about an opinion this week: if you’re writing a book series, don’t write all of it in one go. Don’t write the first, then the second, then go on to the third and fourth and fifth, no matter how much it burns in you, how much you know what you want to write. Instead, take the time, at a point of your choosing, to write something else. A book outside the series. It’s a good idea for you to take your mind, your imagination, your writing in new directions, to put some diversity into your work. And it’s a good idea for your readers to enjoy other books of yours, not just that one series. Keep it interesting.