Art Monster Re-Awakened: Writing Novel #2

After I finished writing my first novel, the advice I received most often — along with “don’t query everyone at once” — was “Keep writing. Don’t wait to get an agent or get published. If you have another novel in you, start writing it. Now.”

I’ve read various interviews with published authors conveying the same sentiment, and several authors I’ve corresponded with directly  stressed this, as well.

Whenever I receive this advice, I usually smile, nod, and think, Sure. That’s easy to say when you’ve got a published novel under your belt. I can’t even get someone to publish my first one; why the hell would I start writing a second?

Well… I’ve decided to take the plunge and start writing another novel. *grins enthusiastically*

I actually didn’t plan to write THIS novel, which is currently untitled and shall affectionately be referred to as Novel #2 for the foreseeable future. In truth, there are 3-4 other novels that I’ve sorta-kinda worked on over the past few years. I was pretty sure that if I did decide to tackle a new writing project, I would pick one of those.

Well, as usually happens, the universe surprised me. Novel #2 is a wild card. The idea for it came to me randomly while I was driving home from work one afternoon. I tossed it around for a bit, and somewhere between swearing at a driver who cut me off and checking the traffic on my GPS for the thousandnth time, the story for Novel #2 crept into my mind, and I just couldn’t shake it loose.

It’s exactly like what happened when I decided to, finally, sit down and write my first novel. That almost primal urge to be an Art Monster. This story wants to be written, and these characters are desperate to be heard. They fill my head so much sometimes that nothing else can find its way in. So, this is the book that will be written next.

Novel #2 is a solid blend of women’s fiction and foodie fiction, two of my favorite genres — and, interestingly, two genres that I never thought I would write. Think Under the Tuscan Sun meets The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living  with a smattering of The Unhoneymooners. Yeah. That sounds about right.

My Novel #2 epiphany on the highway was a few months ago. Soon after that, the Table of Contents came together, and I continue to flesh out the story a little more each time I sit down to write.

As for the actual writing, I’m both pleased and astounded to report that the words are coming easily. My new manuscript is currently about 29,000 words, which translates into roughly 82 book pages. My first novel is 88,000 words, and I think I’m going to end up in the 100,000 range for Novel #2.

All I want to do now is write this new novel. Which is great, but frustrating because I still have my day job to go to, as well as Novel #1 to keep pitching to agents, and a blog to run! So, it’s hard to make time for writing. I’m blocking off days to get some solid, uninterrupted writing time in (I managed seven hours one day! It was blissful), but I also find that I don’t have to sequester myself for a whole week in order to get in “the zone.” Writing Novel #2 is a very different experience from writing my first novel.

But, there’s no doubt I’m in full-on Art Monster mode…and loving every second of it. It’s so FUN to lose myself  in creative writing again. Although I adore the Tart, writing for a blog is incredibly different from fiction writing. It flexes different muscles. And, writing something that someone will read for 2-3 minutes, tops, is very different from writing a story that has to keep a reader entertained over 200-300 pages.

And, you know what the strangest thing of all is? I don’t care that my first novel hasn’t been published yet. I mean, I care, because I want that work to be published. But its publication status somehow has no bearing on how I approach writing Novel #2.

I think another reason I put off starting a second novel was the fear factor. I thought I would be plagued by self-doubts when I first put my fingers to the keyboard — can I do this again? Write another novel? What if I’m a One Hit Wonder? What if this new novel isn’t as good as my first? 

Once I started writing, though, my hands were soon flying over the keys, and the story started pouring out. The more I write, the more confident I feel. At some point, those self-doubts shifted from What if it’s not good enough?  to, shockingly, What if it’s…better???  Which is pretty frickin’ amazing.

So, Tartlets, that’s my newest writing update. Thanks for listening! While I’m still querying agents for my first novel, I’ll now also be working on Novel #2.

Who knows? Maybe that old saying is true: the best is yet to come.