The Trials and Tribulations of Writing the Second Book
By Yasmin Angoe | August 30, 2022 |
As I sit at my desk, my wireless keyboard waiting expectantly, my fingers hover ever so lightly on its keys. My extra wide gaming screen shines brightly in my eyes, with the minutes ticking away as the TV in the background emits white noise. I wait for the words to come. And wait. And wait.
They don’t come.
I swivel in my chair facing the TV, thinking, “Oh, General Hospital’s on,” and realize that it’s 2 pm and the day has slid past me. I have to pick up my kid in an hour, talk about the school day, and maybe make dinner. Hopefully, I’ll be able to write before I get sleepy.
I should have started writing at 8 am, typing my way to literary heaven. I should have banged out at least 1600 words to keep up with my Scrivener target count and deadline.
I didn’t.
Instead, I whiled the day away, sitting at this desk. I daydreamed. I lamented. I checked social. I texted. I even paid some bills — and who the hell wants to do that? I begged for words to drop into my head so I could write They Come At Knight. It didn’t happen the next day, or the next, or the next…for months.
The words abandoned me. Creativity that once flowed, betrayed me, leaving me insecure and confused. Second-guessing myself and angry that words seemed so effortless for everyone, I struggled to get down ten. I developed a debilitating fear that I was going to disappoint everyone: my publisher, my agent, my family and friends, the readers.
I don’t include myself in that list of people who I was going to disappoint because writing, to me, was no longer for me. It was for everyone else. That’s why I became too paralyzed to write.
When I wrote Her Name Is Knight, I wrote for me. I wrote to get out this story that had been building within me for years. I wrote while holding down a demanding full-time job and commuting daily, raising kids, and other family duties. When the house was finally quiet because my kids are great like that, I sat on my bed and wrote the night away. Effortlessly. Because I was writing for me. With no expectations. No limitations. No deadline looming over my head. No promoting one book while attempting to write the other. No one was waiting for my first book but me. And that feeling was glorious!
I had to write the second book before the first one was even released. I didn’t know how HNIK would be received. How could I write a sequel when I didn’t know what worked, or not, with the first? I guessed. I wrote the story and prayed everyone would love it too. I know how people can be when the sequel isn’t like the first. I didn’t want to disappoint before I even knew what would be disappointing.
Then the reviews started rolling in. Everyone seemed to love Nena Knight and her story. They said such marvelous things, calling the voice haunting, telling me they cried when they read the end. Good, because so did I! I received emails where readers told me just how much my book meant to them. Stuff I would say to authors I adored whose books I devoured (cough Stephen King and Toni Morrison) were being said to me!
With each wonderful compliment and review, I grew more fearful of whether my second book would be just as good or if everyone would be disappointed. I had the third book to think about next and the only thought I had was, “Geez, how’d it get like this?”
It’s only recently I realized that I had stopped writing for me. I’d let all the extraneous stuff I couldn’t control clutter my mind. I’d lost my joy of creating a story. I’d forgotten how I felt when writing, when my entire being became lost in the world I was building and the characters whose lives flowed from my fingertips. All of that went away because I’d become consumed with everyone else’s expectations. I was the one who needed to love the story first.
Most writers will say that writing the second book is harder than the first. It is because you’ll be plagued with doubt. Doubt that you’ll live up to the first book. They say writing the third is better, but I don’t know about that. What I do know is that I had to learn to put no one’s expectations above my own. I had to remember that feeling when writing the first book, the thrill of discovery. I had to focus on that.
I still have bad days when self-doubt creeps in. Wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But now what I do is swivel around in my chair, root around for that book-one feeling, and channel it, then swivel back around, lay my fingers on keyboard, squint at that computer screen, and write like the story is for no one else, but me. Because it is for me.
Do you write for yourself, or does something else inspire you onward? Does it matter to your motivation to be aware of it? Have you ever had to “crack your code” to get to the bottom of why you weren’t writing? What did you learn? What did it take for you to write again?
Inspirations welcome!
Yasmin Angoe is a first-generation Ghanaian American and debut author of Her Name is Knight. In 2020, she received the Sisters in Crime Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Emerging Writers of Color and is a proud member of SinC, Crime Writers of Color, and, Southeast Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers.
Yasmin was a middle and high school English teacher and currently works as a developmental editor and sensitivity reader in South Carolina. When not writing or editing, she is watching movies, engrossed in a new audiobook, or daydreaming about the fact she probably should be writing.
Thanks for this post. It was very encouraging.
I wrote my first book for me. I decided to self-publish so I would have one copy. I ended up telling friends I’d written a book. They wanted to read it. Most of them liked it. While going through my second or third round of edits, I had the idea for a second book, and added in elements to carry forward.
In writing the second book (which I started in 2009), I’ve found that, yes, I’m worried about what people will think. Will it be as good? Will they be disappointed? Will they like my new writing style? Why did I make this story so much more complicated than the first? How can I make this story work with what I’ve already said in the first book?
After many years of trying to write the sequel, and putting it away more times than I can count, I decided to write a prequel for me, so I would know the backstories of my two main characters. That was in January 2022. I’ve had such a great time re-learning how to write. Words and ideas are coming faster than I can get them down. I’m up to 136,000 words in this prequel. I’m learning what my first drafting process is like. I know I can carry that forward as I write the sequel. I’m remembering what it’s like to write just for me, and I feel a lot more confident now than I did in 2009 (or even last year).
I haven’t published. I have, though, drafted an entire fantasy series since 2016 (7 novels and a novella). Partly, I did that so I wouldn’t be scrambling under pressure after the first book was self-published, but also so I wouldn’t allow myself to be swayed by my own insecurties. I knew, like you’ve discovered, that it becomes easy to chase expectations.
I have, though, published on my blog since 2013. Each week, without fail, I’ve published a blog post on Thursday. On Tuesday and Saturday I publish a poem. I’ve learned how difficult it is to predict what appeals to my audience. Over time, I realized what worked best was not predicting. Instead, self-honesty was the best path, putting myself out there and saying, “Hey, this is me.” My true audience would stick around, those who thought I was someone else might leave. Regardless, it’d work itself out.
If you’re trying to write to your audience’s expectations, ask yourself which particular reader you’re writing for? They may all like your work for different reasons. Trying to lean one way or the other will drive away readers and, if you aren’t writing what is honestly you, many of those readers might have been your true readership. Let your head guide your craft, but keep it out of your art. It’s your art that sets you apart from everyone else. The best of luck to you with your writing, and with your writer trials. That you worry shows you care.
I’m exactly there–writing book 2 in my fantasy romance series without knowing how well book one will be received. Book one, The Witch Whisperer, is under contract with a publisher (release date in 2023), and my editor frequently asks how I’m coming with book 2 even though they haven’t contracted for it yet. Double the insecurity for me. I love my first book. I had fun writing it over two lazy years. Book 2 is a slug fest. It doesn’t seem to have the same tone. I’m not having as much fun. Have I written myself into a corner plot-wise? Thanks for the advice to write for yourself no matter what stage you’re at. I’ll try changing my attitude and focus on my love of the story, not what I think my editor might want.
I’m in that boat, but it isn’t the second novel, it’s the third. I wrote the first book of what has become a trilogy knowing that I was doing it only so I could say I had done it. I wasn’t trying to impress anybody except the ghosts of half a dozen authors, who hung over my shoulder and said, “That’s a cliché,” and “Nobody talks like that.” The book ended with the possibility of a sequel. I am lazy and already had a cast onstage, so I wrote a second book. I failed to land an agent for them, so I published them myself as e-books. They’re fine. Maybe a tad self-indulgent.
But NOW, after many people (two) asked for more of my hero’s adventures, I have returned to the well, and it’s not going well. I have painted my hero into a tiny corner, his sweetheart is pregnant, his new antagonists are a bunch of namby-pambies who aren’t even trying to kill him, and he hates his job. Oh, and his hair’s turning white. That’s not gonna play in Peoria.
I am writing my second novel too, but the first one is not published (yet?), I don’t even have an agent (yet?). So in a way, I am lucky, I guess, as I am still writing for me. Also the second one has nothing to do with first – no sequel, not the same “ideal reader persona”. On the other hand I have not had the experience of a happy readership who liked my work. So the feeling of “I am any good with this?” is still there, the moments of insecurity, of self-doubt. The only thing I can battle this with is to keep being true to my stories and my characters, who need me to write them a home to live in.