When you write the first book of a series, you do have to be careful what you put in because then you are stuck with it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.
I think in some ways, you end up with more interesting storytelling with series, because if you've written yourself into a corner with something in book 1, you have to be cleverer to get out of it.
I did not know at first that it would be a series; I discovered after the first novel that I had more to say about it, so I did another. And another, and then the readers demanded yet more.
Each book first begins with a little idea.
If you're going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.
Your first book is kind of a labor of ignorance. You don't realize the difficulty of it. Your second book is sort of a labor of fear. Then you sort of either hit a stride, or you don't.
I pretty much always wanted to write a series, because I love reading them.
You want people to be eager for your book; the downside is when the people forget the series even exists.
The books are like children in that having written one doesn't make writing the next one any easier, because it's a new set of problems and a new set of challenges with each one, and having dealt with one before means that you now know how to do it.
I think of every book as a single entity, and some have later gone on to become a series, often at the request of readers.