More of a Writer's U-Turn?

Yeah, funnily enough I found myself in a pretty much identical situation.

I completed a comic fantasy and got it out with Betas then started a serious Sci-Fi which was to be my magnum opus. About fifteen thousand words in I missed my comic fantasy world; sorry to say that I decided if the first one did sell I would be under pressure to write a second so I convinced myself that it would be better to have the second one up my sleeve to take the pressure off... so I wrote that and it is now out with Betas. I wrote a few more thousand words of the Magnum Opus then abandoned it for a (hopefully) final edit of the first book but I am already having little plot explosions in my head for the third... I LOVE the serious Sci Fi and really bond with the characters, story, and plot but it is happnening very slowly (and I get a lot of pleasure out of the light hearted stuff).

I would say that, at this stage, go with what's comfortable, enjoy it, don't worry too much about publication, produce the best work you can and see what happens; I wish you good luck!

I agree - if the project that is calling you is the sequel - write that. Two reasons - the other one - that one is going slower, right? so you'll put a lot of time and effort into it and I think that will sap the energy of the sequel, which is calling you.

I expect you can finish that sequel sooner than you can finish the other project. Then once the sequel is done you can work on other things (unless it's a trilogy - but in any case, I'd say go where the energy is calling you.)

I agree with the others. Write what is calling to you. As you mentioned, and you brought up a good point, your heart isn't in the next project and it will show in your writing. OR you can take a breather from everything to try to clear your mind. Then when you're ready to write again, if you still have the urge to write the sequel, then do it. Don't worry about getting the first one published.

JonnyTheDean said:

I probably could finish it sooner - though I would like to aim for publication, and writing a sequel to an unpublished novel seems like it's wasting time that could be better spent elsewhere. Even if it turned out to be the best thing I've ever written, the fact that it's a sequel to something unpublished would make it unpitchable.

I suspect part of it is for the same reason I started writing my very first novel several years back during my master's degree; I was supposed to be doing something important, so my brain decided it was only interested in the thing I shouldn't be doing.

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I don't know how to explain this to you - but - basically, IME, these things that seem rational - they are your misguided 'Director' (this part is also the Critic) telling you to do the thing that it has learned (from how you grew up) is the 'real' important goal. The things I've bolded are what I see as very subtle and tricky self-sabotage. You might want to consider reading 'The War of Art' - short and easy to read - by Stephen Pressfield. Also might want to consider listening to Alan Watts (not Alan Watt!). You can find him on Youtube.

A lot of people struggle with this kind of thing btw - a critic that seems not so bad but is really good at keeping you 'safe' from risking real exposure.

I have just 'paused' a WIP at 28k because I had a little side-idea that I wanted to explore. Six weeks later the side idea is now a 70k first draft and I've had a lot of fun writing it. If something is calling you, I say go with it. I do totally get what you mean about writing a sequel when you haven't got a 'home' for the first one, but the 'right' thing to do isn't always the most sensible.

That's just my opinion anyway

Yup I did this too. I started with a comic novel and desperately wanted to write the sequel straight afterwards. But then a little voice in my head said "but what if the first book fails?".

So I wrote a second (unrelated) book and then a third (also unrelated). And that third book had to be dragged out of my with chains. Now I've written the sequel to book one and I'm most of the way through a sequel to book two. And then I'll probably write a sequel to book three. Or maybe something different.

Of course, the sensible thing would have been to stick with book one, then write a sequel. But I don't seem to do sensible.

Layla Nahar said:

I don't know how to explain this to you - but - basically, IME, these things that seem rational - they are your misguided 'Director' (this part is also the Critic) telling you to do the thing that it has learned (from how you grew up) is the 'real' important goal. The things I've bolded are what I see as very subtle and tricky self-sabotage. You might want to consider reading 'The War of Art' - short and easy to read - by Stephen Pressfield. Also might want to consider listening to Alan Watts (not Alan Watt!). You can find him on Youtube.

A lot of people struggle with this kind of thing btw - a critic that seems not so bad but is really good at keeping you 'safe' from risking real exposure.

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I agree with this. I know some people do feel better working on projects that they think are the most publishable, and I'm not going to unilaterally condemn that approach because it does work with some people's goals. But these ideas about what you "should" do can be very limiting for a lot of people.

JonnyTheDean, I don't know how much experience you have or if you've completed other drafts before or not. Keep in mind that each novel is practice, especially when you're still relatively new to finishing novels. Writing the sequel will give you some experience that may be helpful for the next novel you write. That's not useless if your goal is to be published one day.

If this is what you really want to be writing right now and you feel inspired, I think you should go with your instinct.