Bayou Scar--The Journey of Writing a Sequel

My new book, Bayou Scar, comes out on Oct. 1, 2013. Finally. It should have been out almost four months ago! But writing a trilogy isn't as easy as you might think, and when you've written the first tale to good reviews, you kinda feel that crazy pressure of the next one needing to live up to certain expectations.

I think the hardest part for me in crafting the second book was that I wrote the rough draft for it right after writing a second draft of Bayou Myth. I was inspired and ready to keep the story rolling along while it was fresh in my mind. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But then life interfered. Edits for Bayou Myth ate up a lot of time. I started writing for multiple clients and Bayou Scar got pushed to the back burner. When I did get around to reading that rough draft, it depressed me. I'd made so many changes and edits to Bayou Myth that the draft for Bayou Scar had things in it that no longer applied or didn't make sense.

It was frustrating. Really frustrating. The kind of frustrating that makes you procrastinate big time and only work on it in small spurts.

Last spring I finally got my act together and started cleaning up the rough draft. It was surprisingly painful. Joan (my main character) and I were at odds with each other. She wanted to do one thing on the page and I wanted her to do another! She wouldn't behave.

And then I realized she really needed to run the show. So what if I had all these words already written? They weren't exciting me, much less Joan. I had to let go and let her take the lead.

Once I did, every thing fell into place.

I'm proud to announce that after writing five drafts of the novel, going through a Beta Reader group, and working with the best editor out there--Ramona DeFelice Long--the novel will be released on Oct. 1. Yippee! Just in time for Halloween!

You can pre-order your copy of Bayou Scar today at Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon!

Here is the publisher's blurb from Dragonfire Press:

The moment teenage voodoo queen Joan Renault holds the Golden Apple of Journalism in her hand, its deadly power silently infiltrates her life. But this apple is more than just a token of high school pageantry.

It's toxic. Poisonous.

And it just might kill all the people Joan loves.

This is Book 2 in the Bayou Myth series.

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Of course, now comes the hard part...writing the final book in this trilogy! It's called Bayou Curse and will hopefully be out soon!


Follow Mary Ann Loesch at Twitter or Facebook or drop by www.maryannloesch.com.

Writing a Sequel: Labor of Love or a Really Good Way to Pull Your Hair Out?

I always thought writing a follow up book to a novel would be easy. Perhaps it is for some writers. However, for me it's a challenging process that makes me understand why some authors just don't do it.

I mean, is there really anything more to tell about these characters anyway?

Of course there is! There's always another path that could be explored in a character's history or world, but I guess the big question is should it be explored? And if the answer is yes, how do you go about doing it?

This past year as a ghostwriter I wrote a trilogy for a client. It was definitely one of the more challenging things I've done. Writing sequels takes time and thought, and you have to be willing to look at the overall story arc for three books rather than just focusing on the one. This means doing  a lot of pre-planning. Keep in mind that your pre-planning may go out the window if a character decides to get uppity and take on a mind of its own.

The best tools I came up with to help keep the story arc focused and coherent were to write outlines for each of the sequels to the original. I hate creating a synopsis for something I haven't written yet. It always makes me feel that my creativity is being told what to do instead of just flowing free. In this case, writing out the synopsis proved to be invaluable. Having the outline allowed me to keep sight of where I was going with each book and make little changes as needed.

This is something that I've already implemented in to my Bayou trilogy and with the follow up for Nephilim---something that is long over due!

However, I'm always curious about other writers and their processes. How do you handle writing sequels? What follow up tools do you use?