No novel is a clone of any preceding one, though with a background cast of characters and things that has grown to thousands, there are many familiar aspects.
I never do a full outline, and if I did, I would not feel bound to it, because the view from inside a scene can be different from the view outside it. But neither do I just start writing and see what happens; I am far more disciplined than that.
I maintain an ongoing survey of Internet Publishing and self publishing, so that it is now possible for any writer with a book to get it published at nominal cost or free, and to have it on sale at booksellers like Amazon.com.
I hope to read a Harry Potter novel soon, to see what it's all about. I admit to being annoyed that many good light fantasy writers have had trouble getting published, in England and elsewhere, when it is obvious the readers were waiting for us all along.
I do one Xanth novel a year, because at the moment that is all that publishers will accept; they don't want any other type of fiction from me, so Xanth pays my way.
I did not know at first that it would be a series; I discovered after the first novel that I had more to say about it, so I did another. And another, and then the readers demanded yet more.
Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series also shows the potential of lighter fantastic fiction. I read the first, and listened to a tape of a later one, and it's fun.
As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them.
Princess Rose should indeed be a TV movie, assuming something doesn't go wrong. I don't know how good a movie it will be, because the way movie folk think is different from the way writers think, and I distrust what isn't done my way. This is what I call a healthy paranoia.
Keep writing, because not only does practice improve skill, it gives you more chances to score on the market. I did that for eight years before making my first sale.
