When to say goodbye to your characters…

Whew.

I just turned in what will likely be the final editorial draft of the second Mockingbirds book. Sure, we'll have line edits and copy edits and page proofs. But pretty soon, I'll be closing the door on Themis Academy.

Yep. I'm moving on to new characters.

What????

You mean you're not writing a trilogy?

Nope.

Not every series needs to be comprised of three books.

The Mockingbirds and its sequel are just that — a book and a sequel.

(Unless of course the public demands a third book and my publisher has no choice but to shower me with gobs and gobs of money in which case – there will be many Mockingbirds books!!)

But barring that, it's time to move on. I am ready to hang out with new characters. To develop new backstories and get to know new boys and girls. I'm working on my FRANKENSTEIN NOVEL now, which is no longer a Frankenstein novel. It's a completed story that I've revised a couple times and am now digging into another set of revisions so I can show it to my agents before Christmas. I love hanging out with these characters because I haven't spent as much time with them as I have the teens at Themis Academy. I have new romances to develop and new kisses to write and new boys for my main girl to fall for. Or not!

And then I'll be working on an entirely new story that I'm super excited about. I wrote a rough draft of the first chapter of this novel and without sharing names, we'll call it BOY NOVEL for now because the main character is a boy. So once FRANKENSTEIN goes to my agents, I'll be spending time with BOY NOVEL.

And then there is a SUPER TOP SECRET PROJECT I can't even tell you about. But it's awesome!!!

The point of all is this is – you have to know when to say goodbye to stories and characters. You have to know when to move on. And you have to know whether a series is best served as one book or ten or somewhere in between.