Book Two or Three?

Two weeks ago, I found myself facing a new writing dilemma. Many times during my writing career I've questioned parts of a book, an element, a scene, and had can-I-even-write panics, but I had never questioned if I was a writing a book too soon.

I had been working on Twas the Murder Before Christmas book 2 and about a quarter of the way through I had this strong feeling it wasn't book 2 in the series--it was three. There was a major event that happened at the end of A Creature Was Not Stirring, and it needed more of an explanation than what I could give it in the story I was writing. Too much time had past from Not Stirring to the time frame for untitled Book 2 for it to be more than a mention, and I felt it needed to be a subplot. So that meant either backing up when the story took place for the untitled story, which didn't work for the plot so that meant putting that story aside and start writing a new one book...currently titled Be Good for Goodness Sake.

The fact that I had thought of a title pretty quickly, and had the main plot figured out within a day of brainstorming and outlining proved I was right, previous Book 2 was actually Book 3. It took a lot of focus and putting other items aside to make sure I was in a good place with Book 2 when the first book was returned to me for edits. But, I did it and a plus is that Book 3 is already a quarter of the way done.