A Writer's Distance

First of all, apologies if this post is incomprehensible.  I have a bit of a head cold, which resulted in me falling asleep in the car whilst running errands (my husband deemed that "cute"), my husband ordering me to remain on the couch for the remainder of the day, my husband making me stew full of beneficial herbs for dinner, and me drinking cup after cup of ginger ale or tea.


When my editor sent me a second round of revisions on The Gossamer Gate, I somehow managed to work my way through them with clarity and now the manuscript is in the hands of the copy editor.  Phew!

While I wait for her to pronounce sentence (pun intended) on the novel, I *also* know that I could hear from my editor from Eternal any day now regarding Heart & Fire.

Heart & Fire is intended as the first book of a trilogy, though it easily stands on its own. Now that leaves me with this question:

Do I work on the story that is meant to be the second book of the trilogy, and is between 1/3 and 1/2 done, or do I step back and focus on something else?


I don't know about other writers, but I do better with distancing myself from a project until that distinct, separate aspect of it that makes it a series is complete.  After all, what if substantial edits are suggested/requested?  That might alter the world to some extent, and render the work on book two useless or pointless.

Personally, I don't expect there to be a problem in that regard, but I still feel that need to step away, since I was so immersed in the world of Heart & Fire for quite some time.

What do you do when you have projects in the editing and/or proofreading stage, and either know that more is expect of you or you simply want to write more?  What is your preference?

At the moment, I am working on the first draft of another story intended to introduce a trilogy.  However, I will most certainly return to the projects that I am expected to complete first.

Did I make any sense tonight? *sniffles and sips her tea*

Copyright (c) 2011 Wendy L. Callahan