Reading leads to rethinking

I've been doing a lot of reading lately (a bit more than usual..books make for good escapes ya know? Of course you know. I'm not telling you guys anything new...)and much to my delight, almost everything I pick up in the YA genre has a sequel or companion novel (or two!). This makes me soooo happy (I hate for a good story to end) but it also makes me think of my own WIP. I have been struggling with this ending for weeks now and I'm starting to think that perhaps I should change things slightly and leave myself with an opening for a second book. Being that it's soft sci-fi, there's a whole world left for my MC to explore and get herself into trouble, so we'll have to see if I can work that out. At the same time it makes me remember that "they" say "don't follow trends because it may not be trending by the time your novel gets onto the shelves". I don't think this is one that can hurt me though since I know enough to make sure that first novel is a good stand alone story. I guess we'll see where those characters lead me.

Coming later this week - a discussion on story mapping and graphic organizers. Helpful for more than short stories or should they be left to my students in the classroom?