I didn't realize it at the time, but I think taking a step back from writing everyday was my way of reorienting. I'd think I may have gotten into a rut, writing had become routine. I don't think it hurt the books, it just changed how I enjoyed the process. 

What this time and space away from writing has given me is a fresh perspective and a chance at a fresh start.

But not yet. 

During my earlier, 25 year break from writing, I was constantly thinking about how to come back. In hindsight, most of what I planned over the years would have been wrong. Most of it would have been overthinking. If I'd come back during that interregnum, I do believe I would have started meandering off in the wrong direction.

Most of these plans were predicated on the old model of publishing: getting an agent, sending books one at a time to publishers, waiting years for actual publication. It was a much slower process, one that really didn't allow for more than one book a year. 

Once my eyes were opened to the new world of publishing, all those previous plans went out the window. I realized I could write as much as I wanted, whatever I wanted. That freed me to let my creative energy flow.

I was amazed how fast those stories emerged. Once I allowed myself to write every idea I came up with, without self-censorship, the ideas came, or so it felt at the time, in an orderly manner. "THIS" is what I should work on next. THIS" is what I'll do after that."

I only had two rules, after all those years of thinking.

A.) Don't rewrite until the first draft is done.

B.) Always finish the book.

There were some missteps and mistakes along the way, but that was also OK. I allowed myself NOT to publish anything that I didn't feel was up to standards. There was always more where that came from.

In a way, that became the problem. There was always more where that came from--and it would all be of similar quality. It would also probably have about the same impact. That is, I was proud of what I wrote while at the same time acknowledging that none of it was really catching on the way I hoped.

What to do?

Well, I identified a few things even before I took a break.

1.) I need a strong premise, one that is both fun to write but also commercially viable (at least to the extent that can be ascertained.) I was writing everything I wanted, but I knew even before I started some of these books that the premise wasn't something that was probably going to be popular. I told myself not to second-guess myself--that, as the screenwriter William Goldman said, "Nobody knows anything." But it is also true that some ideas are better than others.

2.) I need to research more in advance. I need to have a strong outline of a plot.

3.) I need to give myself more time to write the actual book, though this was the part of the process that needs the least change. I believe once you start a story, it's important to stay there until you finish.

4.) I need to sit on the book awhile after I finish, come back to it with fresh eyes, and then give it a vigorous rewrite. This is something I was trying to do already, but there is always the problem of finding the right balance improving the writing and overdoing it. Once I step over the line, the book becomes a stranger to me: a word-jumble. So rewriting needs to be one very disciplined attempt. 

Work, in other words. 

Aye, there's the rub. I write for fun, not work. I don't write for fame or money, I write because I enjoy it. I'm telling myself a story, and I'm intrigued where it's going. I'm meeting new people, getting into their heads. I'm surprising myself with a felicitous phrase, a snappy line of dialogue, a plot twist that comes out of nowhere.

Work is seeing the mechanics of it all. 

Don't get me wrong. I forced myself to do the rewrites necessary to make the books better. I tried to find that balance between improving and messing it up. 

But I will also admit that I never let it become too much work. And, when I come back to writing, I'm going to have to decide just how much more rewriting I'm willing--or should--do. 

So I'm still sorting this out, but I'm beginning to see how it really will be refreshing to start from scratch again, with a new set of perimeters, and see how it all turns out.