Do I stay or do I go?

While writing my first draft of Harmony of War, I completed nearly two-thirds of the book when my book mom, Katie, informed me that the beginning would need major rewrites. In her estimation, and she was 100% correct, there needed to be more conflict and action in the first ten chapters. Originally, my game plan was to finish the first draft and deal with the problems in rewrites. However, as I got further into the story, I realized those rewrites would significantly impact my characters' actions toward the end.

So, I copied the entire book into my notes, thinking I would [copy][paste] whole scenes back in as I reworked the first ten chapters. Wow, was I wrong.

I ended up rewriting almost the entire thing. Katie was incredibly worried when I told her I scrapped that first draft. She feared I would lose all motivation for writing thanks to this early "failure." Luckily, I enjoyed the rewrite so much that I was grateful for it and threw myself into the work. Three months later, I sent the first complete draft to Katie for round one of edits.

But now that I am sending my book to agents and looking to get published, I am torn about how to approach book two, Harmony of Destruction. Do I just go ahead and start it, throwing myself fully back into writing? Or do I wait and get feedback from an agent, editor, and publisher? I'm afraid what happened last time will happen again. I will get two-thirds of the way through book two and then need to rewrite it all.

Ultimatly, having to do a rewrite may prove as fulfilling and productive as last time. Getting the ideas on the page and starting the process may prove more important. But it was heartbreaking to realize how much work I really needed to do that first time. I'm just not sure what to do.

On top of that, if I don't write book two right away I'm fearful that I won't be able to keep character motivations, plot twists, and magic applications congruent. What if I get to the end of Harmony of Destruction and realize I need to add something to the lore to make the action consistent, but that detail needs to be mentioned in chapter seventeen of Harmony of War? But by that logic, I should just write the entire series before even trying to get published, and I don't think I can contain my excitement that long. So I'm stuck wondering...

Do I stay with my plan of editing book one while writing book two? Or do I go with caution and find representation before diving into the next project? I feel really stuck. Do I stay, or do I go?