This is what it feels like to turn in your finished manuscript on deadline.

The morning after turning in a manuscript looks like this

You get up, get dressed, look around the house (in my case, the RV) and think… what on earth am I supposed to do with my day?

The good news? With series writing, the next day includes catching up on things you want, and need, to do. I have a writing student’s story to critique, social media work to catch up on, the Ashland Mystery Festival to prepare for and then…

…walks in Lithia Park, book shopping, book reading, hanging with family and friends, and wandering aimlessly, after which, I will pull out the descriptor for the second book in the series, take a deep breath, grab a latte, and start the writing process all over again.

Series writers are not dilettantes or divas. They are butt-in-the-seat professionals. They don’t wax eloquent over the ten years of struggle it took to finish their novel (not that there’s anything wrong with that). They have short deadlines, often somewhere between three and four months, to draft and polish an entire novel.

I love deadlines. I love the grind and the daily walk to RoCo for a soy latte with shaved chocolate sprinkles that the baristas often have made before I even pay. (Today’s was a celebratory choco-splosion!) I love discovering that my characters are far deeper than the descriptor I wrote about them when I pitched the book. I love pulling up maps of the places they walk and vicariously (or IRL if the locale is local) munching the food they munch. I love watching the person I was certain committed the crime turn into someone complex enough to keep me, and hopefully my readers, guessing to the end.

Sitting for so long that my shoulders freeze up and my hip screams when I stand? Not on my love list. (Thank you Tai Chi and Lithia Park walks.)

A few weeks from now, Emily, my lovely Storm Publishing editor in London, will send structural edits for book one. Those are big picture edits which might include points such as “kill someone sooner,” “bump up the subplot,” or “combine these three chapters.”

By the time I receive those edits, I’ll have half-forgotten that book because I’m already chapters into the next one. The absolute joy of series writing is this: the next book is waiting for you to dive in.

It’s the same joy I have as a series reader. If I love a series, I want the next book, hopefully before I’ve forgotten what happened in the previous books.

What do you love about book series? What ticks you off? Do you read more series, or singles? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and follow my writing journey by subscribing!