"Write the next book"

I remember struggling with my first book.  It went through several edits, including at least three complete rewrites. It took what felt like an eternity to finalise and publish.

In some ways it was a good thing I wasn't hanging out on writers' forums in those days, because if I had been, and I had been asking for advice from more seasoned writers, a lot of that advice would boil down to: finish that book, and then write the next book.

As a new writer, struggling with your first book, that can be pretty disheartening advice. 

Even now, when new writers pop up on forums and ask seasoned writers for advice on what to do with their single book, the most common advice given is this: write the next book.

Now, there are a lot of really good business and marketing reasons why writing the next book is an excellent idea, but I'm just going to focus here on some reasons why it's actually a really good idea for new writers (and I still class myself as fairly new) to focus on writing the next book, and the next, and then the next.

There are probably a lot more good reasons, but here's the five I came up with off the top of my head:

• Writing the first book teaches you how to write that book; you will learn a lot more about the craft of writing by exploring other ideas.

• If you only have one book, all your hopes, dreams, expectations are on that one book. That's a lot of pressure!

• No one is perfect first time. Practice helps. Practice helps a lot.

• Finishing a book requires a particular type of energy, and stubbornness, that gets easier with practice. 

• Writing is fun. No, really, it is. We get to make up stories, and share them, inviting others into our worlds.  Why wouldn't you want to share more of the fun?