Abandoning an intended series

Maybe you should put it down for a while and then come back to it? It's possible that you're just very tired of it at the moment.

Sounds like you may just need a long break from it. Save your work on it and come back to it later, when you've cleared your head.

Well, let's hope no fans of the book wander in here. They'd be awfully disappointed to find out the author "could care less." But I think the others are probably right, you might just be soured on the experience. Write what you want to write, no need to feel guilty about it, and revisit this story when you've got a couple more years between your new career and those Publish America days.

Do it. You can always come back to the first series if your muse calls.

Jersey Chick said:

Do it. You can always come back to the first series if your muse calls.

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Look at McCaffrey's Pern Novels, King's Dark Tower or Baldacci's Sean King-Michelle Maxwell books. Those authors put out other books between those ones. You can come back later or, depending how sales go, you may find you don't want to go back. That's fine too.

Put it down, and come back when it calls to you.

You shouldn't write a story you're not excited about; it's an insult to yourself, your characters, and fans of your book.

Give it a bit of space.

As someone said above, you're quite possibly feeling soured by the experience with Publish America.

If the characters and the story were alive and wonderful back then, then making them so again in the future will be a personal victory against Publish America.

xXFireSpiritXx said:

It is now I have realized, I could care less about any of it. I have no ambition to write the next volume nor even dive into the world of the characters who no longer speak to me. Is this horrible?

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I'm writing a sequel now, and it's tough. It's like going back to an old neighborhood where you had such good times, and finding everyone else has moved on or died, and the old pool hall is an exclusive boutique.

Go back to it later. It could just be you're tired of it RIGHT NOW. Obviously if you fought that hard you cared about it at one point. You might again one day.

My series started as a fanfic series. I loved the fanfic, it was great, I did it for years while practising my craft, learning to manage a fanbase, the whole nine yards. When I'd gotten a decent amount of story under my belt, I figured I had enough original content and characters to do something other than fanfic with it.

Had a good start - had encouragement from my existing fans, and I did a bunch of drafts, each taking it further and further from the fanfic and the original canon (a good thing). It was a lot of work, doing tons of drafting on new worldbuilding, characters to replace roles that had been filled by canon characters etc.

It was tiring, but I kept at it.

Another couple of worldbuilds later, and a dozen drafts later, I was still at it. Still chipping away, trying to give it a new identity, to make the work my own. It got to a good state, but I wasn't happy with it - technically it was good, but I didn't like it.

I got really frustrated, and just gave up on writing as a whole for a year. Didn't write a word, had panic attacks when I tried to write, couldn't go back to it no matter what I wanted to do.

Eventually came back to writing, and the story was still there...waiting. I hated it. I flat out hated it. I hated my main character and just wanted her to die and get out of my head. -_-

I did a new world build, in a different genre, using the basis for what I'd created so far...and finally found my genre. But the character set was still there, I tried to relegate their role to something in the background, so that they existed, but weren't important.

They still plagued me. -_-

I tried to write one novel about that set of characters, to try and get it out of my head, just to have a clean break from them. It didn't work. I was still massively frustrated, and trying to concentrate on the new characters didn't work...because I knew that deep down I really wanted to write about these characters, no matter how much they frustrated me.

I did some more worldbuilding, without actually writing any story, bought a new laptop, and just sat down to write.

And...for the first time ever, everything just worked. Nothing had really changed, but everything just flowed, even if it wasn't quite polished.

I'm still writing about those characters now, and plan on writing about them for years to come.

TL;DR...if you're meant to come back to something, you will.

dangerousbill said:

I'm writing a sequel now, and it's tough. It's like going back to an old neighborhood where you had such good times, and finding everyone else has moved on or died, and the old pool hall is an exclusive boutique.

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That is so true, even from a reader's perspective sometimes.

I recently had this feeling when reading Mark Gatiss's Lucifer Box series. Picking up the second book, after reading the first, this was exactly the sensation I experienced.

/derail

I'm just going to ditto what everyone else has said. Put it to the side, let it develop its flavor again while you work on other things. If it's right to come back to it, you will. You shouldn't try to force it because it will show.

You don't say whether your new publisher is expecting more books in the series. I take it you don't have a contractual agreement to write more?

Do what plenty of other authors do, start new projects come back to old ones later. Don't feel bad about it, writing is exhausting and after all you've gone through I imagine you associate it with negative memories and a time in your life you didn't like. Don't be ashamed.

I'm sure your readers would understand too, there's only so much steam an author can have and they will probably value you putting it aside as apposed to writing a half arsed story with the characters acting OfC.

I can usually tell when an author is bored of their series, they don't enjoy writing it, their muse has gone, it's clear in their writing.

Sequels are made, not born. If the first book sells well enough, the publisher will expect a new novels in the series. If it sells poorly enough, you couldn't give the publisher a next book.

You need to write something else, and worry about a sequel, a next book in the series, when and if sales make the publisher ask for one.

The biggest mistake many new writers make is working on a sequel before one is asked for. If the first book truly flops, and all you have ready to go is a sequel, you're in serious trouble with that publisher.

Many a writer has been dropped for this very reason.

I've put a published series on hold to work on a new one. Same genre, different target audience. It's very refreshing, and it's not uncommon for authors to want a change.

Hi xXFireSpiritXx

You should complete it (the four part series), do a closure and move on...

Nothing beats a completed product that can benefit you in the long run. The last thing you want is something which you have sacrificed with so much efforts and it is stalled halfway.

Mandiloo322 said:

Sounds like you may just need a long break from it. Save your work on it and come back to it later, when you've cleared your head.

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Ditto. The work I'm currently querying got put on the back burner for ten years. TEN. It took that long for the characters to start talking to me again. Now they won't shut up.