Chugging Along

I am making progress on HM. 25 pages so far. While I'm not going any directions I hadn't planned on, I find myself inserting moments between Sloan and the people around him that give more depth to what their relationships are. One I like in particular is between Sloan and his daughter, Shannon. He's remembering a moment with his wife when Shannon was 2 (she's 12 now). Shannon comes in and sees him with tears in his eyes. It's a nice scene--if I do say so myself.

My one concern is that I am moving the plot along very quickly and may end without reaching the page count I was shooting for. Before I get a lot of comments, I realize that the book will be as long as it needs to be. I tend to write sparsely and have to go back and flesh out. Plus it will need to be checked for continuity problems because of the changes I implemented halfway through, which may end up increasing the word count. But I will have to decide if I want to start the second HM book or maybe start D&D or JB (jewelry book--I hate coming up with titles).

Any suggestions? Any that sounded more or less interesting to you? I would guess that the "industry experts" would say to start the second HM because starting one series is hard enough without throwing a second or third. But is it silly to write the second book in a series when you haven't sold the first? I guess I'll just decide when, and if, I get to that point.