Plan in Advance

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Plan in Advance: The Secret to Launching a Bestselling Book Series

I can hear the “pantsers” among you—those writers who love to fly by the seat of their pants and discover the story as they write—letting out a collective sigh!

We get it. Rigid outlines can feel like a straitjacket for your creativity. But here is the hard truth every successful series author knows: some level of planning is non-negotiable when you are writing a book series.

Exactly how much outlining you do is entirely up to you. You might be an extreme outliner who maps out every chapter, or a flexible planner who just needs a general roadmap. Either way, at the very least, there are two critical questions you need to answer before you ever type the words “Chapter One.”

Let’s dive into what those questions are and why answering them early will save you from major heartbreak down the road.

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Question 1: Is There Room for the Story to Continue?

Imagine this: You’ve stumbled upon a brilliant, juicy historical event. It’s dramatic, it’s filled with high stakes, and it practically writes itself. You pour your heart into Book One, and it’s a masterpiece.

Then comes the pressure from your readers: “When is Book Two coming out?”

Panic sets in. You realize that the incredible historical event you based the first book on was a one-hit wonder. You’ve burned through your best material, and you have nowhere left to go.

To build a sustainable book series, you have to think long-term. Before committing to a series, ask yourself:

• Are there other events to leverage? If you are writing historical fiction, look at the timeline surrounding your first book. Are there subsequent historical events, cultural shifts, or political changes that your characters can stumble into in the following years?
• Are there broader plot opportunities? Can you expand the world, introduce new conflicts, or pull back the curtain on a larger, overarching mystery that spans multiple volumes?

If the well runs dry the moment your first book ends, you don’t have a series—you have a standalone novel with sequel anxiety.

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Question 2: Is There Room for Character Growth?

Characters are the beating heart of any great series. Readers fall in love with your protagonists, and they want to follow them on a journey of personal evolution.

However, a common trap for debut series authors is wrapping everything up too neatly in Book One.

Make sure you aren’t closing down the avenues for your character to change and grow. If your protagonist achieves all their goals, heals all their trauma, finds their ultimate love, and reaches absolute perfection by the end of the first novel, where is left for them to go?

When planning your first book, leave your characters with room to breathe—and room to fail. Ensure that:

• Their internal arc is ongoing. Maybe they solved the murder, but they still struggle with trust.
• New flaws are exposed. As they solve one problem, perhaps their actions inadvertently create a new personal flaw or challenge they must face in the next installment.
• Their relationships are evolving. Leave room for friendships to fracture, romances to hit bumps, or new alliances to form.

If your character has nowhere to grow, readers will lose interest by book two because the protagonist has become stagnant.

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The Special Case of the Standalone-in-a-Series

What if you don’t want a sprawling, interconnected epic fantasy or a continuous thriller arc? What if you intend for each book in your series to be a standalone—meaning it can be read and enjoyed completely on its own, without requiring readers to read the previous books (think Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot or many romance series)?

If this is your approach, you breathe a little easier: You won’t have to worry about expansive, multi-book story arcs.

However, you aren’t completely off the hook! Even in a standalone-per-book series, you still have to:

1. Consider future plot opportunities: You need a formula or a fresh well of ideas so you can drop your recurring characters into brand-new adventures time and time again.
2. Ensure your main characters have staying power: Your recurring protagonist (like a detective, a roving adventurer, or a matchmaker) needs to be dynamic, interesting, and flexible enough to carry multiple books on their own shoulders without exhausting the reader’s patience.

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Strike the Right Balance

Planning a book series doesn’t mean you have to kill the magic of discovery. It simply means laying down a foundation strong enough to support a skyscraper, rather than just a one-room cabin.

By taking a step back to evaluate your future plot potential and your characters’ growth trajectories, you set yourself up for long-term publishing success.

Are you a pantser or a planner? How do you map out your book series? Let us know in the comments below!

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Day 268 – Getting Feedback

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The Praise and the Perils of Feedback: Why Loving the Applause Can Be Just as Dangerous as Fearing the Critique

There is nothing quite like the dopamine hit of hearing, “That was incredible!”

Whether you’re a writer, a designer, a coder, an entrepreneur, or just someone who poured their heart into a project, praise feels like validation. It tells you that your efforts mattered, that your voice was heard, and that you are on the right track.

Conversely, hearing that your work misses the mark—or worse, is actively bad—hits like a physical blow. The stomach drops, the defensive walls go up, and the inner critic starts whispering, “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

As professionals and creators, we spend a lot of time learning how to handle harsh criticism. We read books on thick skin, take courses on emotional resilience, and tell ourselves not to take things personally. But here’s the uncomfortable truth we rarely talk about: While negative feedback can crush your spirit, unearned or unexamined praise can quietly destroy your craft.

Welcome to the complex, psychological tightrope walk of professional feedback. Let’s explore the praise, the perils, and how to survive both.

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The Sweet Trap of Praise

Let’s start with the good stuff. Praise is wonderful. It fuels us, builds confidence, and makes the late nights and gruelling revisions worth it.

However, praise carries a hidden hazard: complacency.

When people love your work, the temptation is to sit back and bask in the glow of approval. But in creative and professional spaces, comfort is the enemy of growth. When you believe you’ve created a masterpiece, you stop questioning your process. You stop looking for the flaws.

Worse yet, constant praise can lead to the “Pleaser’s Dilemma.” If you become addicted to the high of being told your work is amazing, you may unconsciously start tailoring your future projects to keep people happy. You begin making safe, predictable choices that guarantee applause, rather than taking the risky, innovative leaps that lead to true mastery.

The Peril of Praise: It tells you who you were yesterday, not who you could be tomorrow.

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The Bitter Pill of Criticism

On the other end of the spectrum is negative feedback. Nobody enjoys being told their baby is ugly. When someone looks at something you’ve bled over and picks it apart, the natural biological response is fight-or-flight.

Yet, as we all know intellectually, criticism is often where the magic happens. A sharp critique acts like an X-ray machine; it exposes the structural weaknesses you were too close to see. It forces you to defend your choices, rethink your logic, and ultimately elevate your work.

However, criticism has its own set of perils, primarily noise pollution.

Not all criticism is created equal. Some negative feedback comes from a place of genuine expertise and a desire to help. But a lot of it stems from personal bias, misunderstanding, or a simple mismatch in taste. If you take every piece of negative feedback to heart, you risk “designing by committee”—twisting your work into a fragmented, unrecognisable mess trying to please every dissenting voice.

The Peril of Criticism: It can paralyse you, derail your vision, and make you abandon a great idea just because one person didn’t get it.

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How to Navigate the Feedback Loop

So, how do we survive the intoxicating rush of praise and the stinging blow of critique without losing our minds—or our creative integrity?

Here are four rules for mastering the feedback loop:

1. Vet Your Sources

Not all opinions carry the same weight. Before you let praise inflate your ego or criticism break your heart, ask yourself: Does this person actually understand my goals? Do they have expertise in this domain?

• A standing ovation from your mom is sweet, but it won’t help you improve your professional output.
• A harsh critique from a bitter internet stranger isn’t worth losing sleep over. Curate a small “board of directors”—trusted peers, mentors, or editors whose taste you respect—and prioritize their voices above all others.

2. Separate Your Identity from Your Output

This is the holy grail of professional resilience. When someone says, “This report is confusing,” they are not saying, “You are an unintelligent person.” When you tie your self-worth to your work, praise becomes an addiction and criticism becomes an existential threat. Practice viewing your work as a separate entity—something you built, crafted, and put out into the world, but not the sum total of your human value.

3. Look for the Pattern, Not the Incident

If one person tells you your writing is too dense, they might just be having an off day. But if five people tell you your writing is too dense, put your ego in check and pay attention. True feedback is about patterns. When multiple reliable sources point out the same friction point (whether positive or negative), take note. That’s where the real data lives.

4. Stay Hungry (Even When You’re Great)

When you receive glowing praise, accept it gracefully, say thank you, and immediately ask yourself: How can I push this further? What’s the next level? Don’t let the applause drown out your internal drive for curiosity and improvement.

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The Bottom Line

Getting feedback is an inescapable part of putting your work into the world. It’s wonderful when people love what you do, and it stings when they don’t.

Ultimately, both praise and critique are just data points. Praise tells you what resonated; criticism tells you where the friction is. Your job isn’t to chase the applause or run from the jeers—it’s to listen objectively, take what serves you, leave the rest behind, and keep creating.

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Day 268 – Getting Feedback

…

The Praise and the Perils of Feedback: Why Loving the Applause Can Be Just as Dangerous as Fearing the Critique

There is nothing quite like the dopamine hit of hearing, “That was incredible!”

Whether you’re a writer, a designer, a coder, an entrepreneur, or just someone who poured their heart into a project, praise feels like validation. It tells you that your efforts mattered, that your voice was heard, and that you are on the right track.

Conversely, hearing that your work misses the mark—or worse, is actively bad—hits like a physical blow. The stomach drops, the defensive walls go up, and the inner critic starts whispering, “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

As professionals and creators, we spend a lot of time learning how to handle harsh criticism. We read books on thick skin, take courses on emotional resilience, and tell ourselves not to take things personally. But here’s the uncomfortable truth we rarely talk about: While negative feedback can crush your spirit, unearned or unexamined praise can quietly destroy your craft.

Welcome to the complex, psychological tightrope walk of professional feedback. Let’s explore the praise, the perils, and how to survive both.

---

The Sweet Trap of Praise

Let’s start with the good stuff. Praise is wonderful. It fuels us, builds confidence, and makes the late nights and gruelling revisions worth it.

However, praise carries a hidden hazard: complacency.

When people love your work, the temptation is to sit back and bask in the glow of approval. But in creative and professional spaces, comfort is the enemy of growth. When you believe you’ve created a masterpiece, you stop questioning your process. You stop looking for the flaws.

Worse yet, constant praise can lead to the “Pleaser’s Dilemma.” If you become addicted to the high of being told your work is amazing, you may unconsciously start tailoring your future projects to keep people happy. You begin making safe, predictable choices that guarantee applause, rather than taking the risky, innovative leaps that lead to true mastery.

The Peril of Praise: It tells you who you were yesterday, not who you could be tomorrow.

---

The Bitter Pill of Criticism

On the other end of the spectrum is negative feedback. Nobody enjoys being told their baby is ugly. When someone looks at something you’ve bled over and picks it apart, the natural biological response is fight-or-flight.

Yet, as we all know intellectually, criticism is often where the magic happens. A sharp critique acts like an X-ray machine; it exposes the structural weaknesses you were too close to see. It forces you to defend your choices, rethink your logic, and ultimately elevate your work.

However, criticism has its own set of perils, primarily noise pollution.

Not all criticism is created equal. Some negative feedback comes from a place of genuine expertise and a desire to help. But a lot of it stems from personal bias, misunderstanding, or a simple mismatch in taste. If you take every piece of negative feedback to heart, you risk “designing by committee”—twisting your work into a fragmented, unrecognisable mess trying to please every dissenting voice.

The Peril of Criticism: It can paralyse you, derail your vision, and make you abandon a great idea just because one person didn’t get it.

---

How to Navigate the Feedback Loop

So, how do we survive the intoxicating rush of praise and the stinging blow of critique without losing our minds—or our creative integrity?

Here are four rules for mastering the feedback loop:

1. Vet Your Sources

Not all opinions carry the same weight. Before you let praise inflate your ego or criticism break your heart, ask yourself: Does this person actually understand my goals? Do they have expertise in this domain?

• A standing ovation from your mom is sweet, but it won’t help you improve your professional output.
• A harsh critique from a bitter internet stranger isn’t worth losing sleep over. Curate a small “board of directors”—trusted peers, mentors, or editors whose taste you respect—and prioritize their voices above all others.

2. Separate Your Identity from Your Output

This is the holy grail of professional resilience. When someone says, “This report is confusing,” they are not saying, “You are an unintelligent person.” When you tie your self-worth to your work, praise becomes an addiction and criticism becomes an existential threat. Practice viewing your work as a separate entity—something you built, crafted, and put out into the world, but not the sum total of your human value.

3. Look for the Pattern, Not the Incident

If one person tells you your writing is too dense, they might just be having an off day. But if five people tell you your writing is too dense, put your ego in check and pay attention. True feedback is about patterns. When multiple reliable sources point out the same friction point (whether positive or negative), take note. That’s where the real data lives.

4. Stay Hungry (Even When You’re Great)

When you receive glowing praise, accept it gracefully, say thank you, and immediately ask yourself: How can I push this further? What’s the next level? Don’t let the applause drown out your internal drive for curiosity and improvement.

---

The Bottom Line

Getting feedback is an inescapable part of putting your work into the world. It’s wonderful when people love what you do, and it stings when they don’t.

Ultimately, both praise and critique are just data points. Praise tells you what resonated; criticism tells you where the friction is. Your job isn’t to chase the applause or run from the jeers—it’s to listen objectively, take what serves you, leave the rest behind, and keep creating.

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Day 267 – Not being able to write

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Buried Alive: Why Writing Isn’t Just a Passion—It’s Oxygen

“For me, not being allowed to write is tantamount to being buried alive.” — Mikhail Bulgakov

Imagine the heavy, suffocating weight of earth pressing down on your chest. Imagine the absolute silence, the inability to move, the slow, agonizing realisation that your voice has been completely muffled from the world.

To most people, writing is a hobby, a professional skill, or perhaps a therapeutic outlet. But to the true writer, Mikhail Bulgakov’s haunting words are not hyperbole. They are a statement of biological and spiritual reality. For certain souls, the prohibition of the written word is not a restriction; it is an execution.

Why is it that the compulsion to write runs so deep? And what happens when a writer is forced into silence? Let’s explore the profound weight of Bulgakov’s words and what they reveal about the fierce, untameable nature of the creative spirit.

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The Prison of the Unwritten: Who Was Mikhail Bulgakov?

To truly understand this sentiment, we have to look at the man who uttered it. Mikhail Bulgakov was a Russian novelist and playwright best known for his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita. Living and writing under the oppressive regime of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s, Bulgakov experienced censorship and blacklisting firsthand.

His books were banned, his plays were pulled from stages, and his livelihood was systematically dismantled by the state. He was effectively silenced—not because he had nothing to say, but because what he had to say terrified those in power.

When a government or circumstance forbids an artist from creating, it attempts to sever their connection to humanity. For Bulgakov, living in Soviet Russia without the right to write meant his thoughts had nowhere to go. They stagnated, poisoned him from the inside, and turned his daily life into a tomb. When he wrote that famous plea to Joseph Stalin—asking either to be permitted to work or to be exiled abroad because “a Russian writer cannot live without his homeland”—he was fighting for his life.

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Writing as an Existential Necessity

Why does the denial of writing feel like entombment?

1. The Mind as a Pressure Cooker: Writers don’t just decide to write; they are driven by a ceaseless internal engine. Characters speak in their heads; plots unfold while washing dishes; observations of the world demand to be translated into metaphor. When this creative pressure has no outlet, it builds up. Without the release valve of the blank page, the mind becomes a claustrophobic chamber.
2. The Urge to Exist . For many writers, writing is proof of existence. René Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” The writer adds, “I write, therefore I am understood.” To write is to take the chaotic, fleeting experience of being human and anchor it into something permanent. If you cannot write, your experiences vanish into the ether, leaving you feeling invisible—as if you have already faded away.
3. Connection Across the Void: Art is a bridge. When writers put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), they are reaching out across the dark abyss of isolation to say, “Are you here too? Did you feel this?” To ban a writer from writing is to cut the ropes of that bridge, leaving them stranded on an island of their own unspoken thoughts.

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The Modern “Buried Alive”

You don’t have to live under a totalitarian regime to know what it feels like to be buried alive creatively.

In our modern lives, we often bury ourselves. We take on demanding corporate jobs that drain our cognitive battery. We prioritise productivity over expression. We tell ourselves, “I’ll write that novel, start that blog, or finish that poem when things settle down.”

Days turn into months. Months turn into years.

Suddenly, you wake up and realize you haven’t created anything authentic in ages. You feel restless, irritable, and strangely hollow—even if your life looks successful on paper. That is the feeling of suffocation. That is the slow creep of being buried alive by the mundane demands of daily survival.

Bulgakov’s words serve as a stark wake-up call: Neglecting your creative calling is a form of self-burial.

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How to Unearth Yourself

If you are reading this and feeling the dirt piling up over your own creative ambitions, how do you dig your way out? How do you claw your way back to the surface?

• Steal the Moments: You don’t need a cabin in the woods or a year-long sabbatical to write. Bulgakov wrote even when his works were banned, hiding manuscripts in drawers (famously leading to the phrase “manuscripts don’t burn”). Write in the margins of your day—fifteen minutes on your lunch break, thirty minutes before the world wakes up.
• Release the Need for Perfection: Often, the fear of writing badly keeps us from writing at all. But a messy, breathing draft is infinitely better than the sterile perfection of a blank page locked inside your head.
• Treat It Like Oxygen: Stop viewing writing as a reward you give yourself if you finish your chores. Treat it like water and air. Carve out non-negotiable space for it in your routine.

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Final Thoughts: Let the Voice Out

Mikhail Bulgakov reminds us that the human spirit cannot be indefinitely suppressed without consequence. Words are meant to be let out into the light, not left to rot in the dark catacombs of the mind.

If you have a story burning a hole in your chest, an essay waiting to be born, or a poem struggling to break free, do not keep it buried. Pick up the pen. Hit the keys. Breathe.

Because on the other side of that blank page isn’t just a finished piece of work—it’s your freedom.

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What does writing mean to you? Have you ever felt the suffocating weight of creative silence? Let’s talk about it in the comments below.

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