njrick:
I DO NOT WRITE SEQUELS!!!
Who'd've thought it, eh? (For longer-standing library members, Rick Marlowe's sequel-refusal policy is deeply embedded in our psyches, though, as he says himself, his any-story-at-all-refusal leaves a sad gap on our shelves, not that I'm in any position to judge).
It's only natural, when you read a story whose characters and setting really grab you, to want more of the same. And it's tempting for the author, when several commenters cry "Encore!", to accede to that request.
njrick/Marlowe's stance can be seen as both an honourable one - the artist resisting the lure of easy praise - and as a pragmatic one: sequels usually fail to attain the standard of the original, and artists have pride, you know.
I've had my share of sequel-appeals, and mostly passed up the opportunities, but I have sometimes enjoyed writing what you might call a 'spin-off' - a story revisiting familiar characters in a new time or place.