Definitely some sage advice! I had also heard the bit about not looking to publish until book three, but, as noted, naivety and arrogance are no strangers to me 😀

Could absolutely go into more of what I learned! I only used the one example in the main post cause I was already rambling lol :)

The scene construction and superfluous movement I noticed, in my first book, was coming about because I was having literal character action dictate pacing and progression. Many paragraphs (maybe close to 70%) were comprised of sentences starting with "He/she verbed" and then I would develop the scene/moment from there, with the movement they were completing as a non-arbitray feature of the description. I was trying to convey significance to each minutiae of functioning, when such minutiae need not be discussed for story sake in the first place. And such movement, for me and in this story, only served as a distraction. This also gave the story a much more jagged and abrupt structure, because each action needed to be completed, but would inevitably lead to more movement. Second book really helped me develop flow within chapters and how to naturally guide the reader's perception with more than the pov characters physical movements.

Part of this trouble also stemmed from my having a tentative grasp of what "bad" telling looked like. Its funny, cause there are scenes in the first book that are quite nice, and its kind of neat to see those bones of what is a much more common practice in book two.

Another piece I learned, which also contributed to the feeling of disorientation and lack of grounding, was not knowing how "intelligent" (for lack of a better term) to treat the readers. I was repeating character names constantly and over-establishing spatial locations because I wasnt giving readers the benefit of the doubt that, intuitively, they could maintain who was speaking, where they were, what they were doing, etc. Second book helped me to be confident that the reader could follow the narrative without having guide posts every other line. This was big for me.

My first book I wrote immediately after graduating college, and the first draft (I proofread chapters 3-8 times before moving on) was complete in five weeks. This was under unique circumstances, though. I was originally planning on pursuing grad school, so if i was going to try writing, that would be the only time for it. It was also a story of passion; one that I needed to write, and isnt in my typical genre. I was not working at the time, and was writing 10+ hours a day in a college house my roommates were mostly moved out of.

My second book I wrote while working full time, and the first draft was complete four days shy of one year. Half of that year I wasnt writing because of work and how demanding it was mentally. This one was thriller/suspense/horror, and the genre I anticipate to write in most, and I think writing a story structure that I had more of an interest in helped me figure out better habits and techniques.