It’s the first Friday of the new year, and boy was it long. I’ll talk more about that in a moment. This is 5 in a row, and it almost didn’t happen because of a really long work day.
Personal News
Pancakes, Chris’s cat, has entered her slut era. Can I say that?
She’s in heat. It’s ridiculous. None of us got good sleep last night, and I thought I had an early meeting this morning. I did not. I zombied my way through the day, took a brief nap during lunch, and then had to push through some more work which stretched on to just before 10PM. Not ideal.
As I write these words, Pancakes is in the other room, loudly voicing her distress. Chris tried hooking her up with some catnip, but she seems uninterested in it. She wants out of the house, and she wants what only another cat can give her. She is inconsolable.
None of us will survive.
Upcoming Events and Such
Tomorrow, I meet up with my critique group. I don’t have any submissions this time. I need to get up early and get my reading done. I’m also going to meet up with Steven of Water Dragon on Zoom, I think, so we can go over anything I might have missed for Arisia. He won’t be able to make it to Boston, so I’m going to try and fill in as best I can.
It should be fine. It’ll keep me busy.
The Topic: The Demand for Sequels to One for the Road
Melissa would like me to make writing her a new story every year a regular occurrence. Specifically, she’d like a sequel to the story that’s coming out a week from today.
I would love to write more stories in that world! Melissa wants the next story to feature Baby New Year, and I have a loose idea what that might be.
Is there a downside to writing this sequel? Well…
My ability to focus on writing is circumstantial. When I have the time, energy, and focus to actually draft, I want to work on something that can go out into the world.
Generally speaking, sequels don’t sell as well as the first book, so if the first book tanked, you’re pretty much wasting your time writing the next book. It’s one of the reasons I recommend other writes avoid writing sequels before the first book has sold.
I’m not saying One for the Road is going to tank. It’s one of my best stories! I think it has very broad appeal, and it’s short enough that people don’t have to commit too much to enjoy it.
I will say that I have never put out a story this short before, and I’m not sure I’ve done a great job of marketing it. I’m talking about it here on my blog, and I’ll post some more information to the social media I’m on, but social media really doesn’t translate very well into sales.
Another way to look at this… I will write more stories in the One for the Road universe, even if I’m only sharing them with Melissa. But if more people clamor for the sequel, I’ll be that more incentivized to spend my time writing it.