Second/Sophomore/Every Book Syndrome

So this topic has been spoken about at length on some of the boards I frequent, but came up again tonight in email with another Baby-Writer friend. Thought I’d just fling it up on the blog, since I tend to neglect my blog when I’m actively writing a book and it’s all about MASSIVE NUMBERS OF POSTS between books for me!

So… The second book I wrote after selling to Harlequin was epic hard for me(Uncovering Her Secrets). This was before my first book came out, so I didn’t think it actually qualified for Sophomore Book Syndrome—I didn’t have a public image to live up to yet because the public might have hated book1! But it was incredibly hard for me to write.

At the time, I decided the reason that book was so hard was because I was writing a hospital-setting and that was so normal... and I’m not. Then I thought it was because I wrote a sarcastic frequently ass-tastic hero(think Damon on Vampire Diaries) and that it was hard to make him likeable. And finally, I thought it was just because I suck as a writer.

Book3(Circus book – Return of Dr Irresistible) I thought was gonna be a breeze. I was so excited about the story, the setting… the Every Thing. My fabulous editor was letting me run AMOK. It was all gonna be AWESOME. But? It was so freaking hard to write. I decided the reason was that since they were letting me outside the box, do anything I want... that meant IT HAD TO BE PERFECT. Actually, it had to be better than perfect. Because why make the readers take a risk with a circus story when it's no better than a normal everyday setting? If they’re already taking a gamble with the book, that gamble has to pay off. 

Right now? I am working on book4 and I'm at that SUPER EXCITED phase of limitless possibilities and I’m sure it’s going to be easier to write than the others (haha) I haven’t had to put my money where my mouth is—it’s already perfect because it’s all still in my head. I get this way at the start of every book—aside from book2, that book was freaking hard the whole way and I hated it until the last revisions when I suddenly loved it. Every book has been hard to write except book1(Craving Her Rough Diamond Doc) which was insanely hard during that phase where it was rewritten. Twice. 

The difference between the first draft of every other book and the first book? I didn't really know what I was doing when writing book1. I was just painting with my toes to see what would happen! No pressure because no one would want to read it anyway, right? I got to do what I wanted, when I wanted... But now? Now I put pressure on myself to live up to the first book. And then I think things like: Maybe I could only write it vividly because it was set in Appalachia and I know the people and the area so well? Maybe it was because the heroine was a version of me, and I knew her so well. Maybe it was because I based the hero on Joe Manganiello and I was just SUPER MOTIVATED... and really good at picturing Joe Manganiello without his shirt on... Mmmm Joe without a shirt...

I had a point... before Joe distracted me.

OH YEAH. That feeling that comes after you’ve gotten to work on a book and you know it’s all crap, and no one will ever want to publish it, and they will hate you and kill your kitten because HOW ELSE WILL YOU LEARN NOT TO WRITE SUCH CRAP?! That? Everyone feels it. And we all try to rationalize it away because if we can explain why it's happening, then that means we can try and control it. GI Joe told me: Knowing is half the battle! And I believed that crap. 

But really? GI Joe left off one important detail:  

You still have to fight the freaking battle.  

(Go Joe!)

All those reasons I gave myself about why each book was so hard to write were true in part, but mostly they were just my way of giving myself something that I could identify to fight when I was struggling to get through it. And every one since the first draft of book1 have been a struggle... (Book1 was a struggle in the double-rewrite portion of its existence.)

Writing fiction is hard. I might be me deluding myself again, but I think that the first X-number of books are going to keep being really hard. Because every time I write a new book, at least at this phase, I’m learning great gobs of lessons--the kind of lessons that are hard to put into a single HowToWriteAFrigganAwesomeNovel craft book... I’m still behind the curve, but at some point... I’m going to get ahead of it. And it's going to get LESS hard. Not easy, it is never going to be easy... but it's going to make me stop wanting to chew through my own leg to get out of the animal trap(aka: My Contract which I frequently doubt I can ever fulfill).

No matter where you are in your writing career, if it's really hard, keep running to catch up with the curve. You will catch up with it. You will get ahead of it. It's only the first five books that are this hard(I'm fixin to start writing book4, which I'm pretty sure is going to be hard, but book5 will be the sweet spot, PLEASE GOD...)

To sum up: If at the end of writing a book you look like this http://marlenebaer.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/drowned-rat.jpg ? You’re probably doing it right. (I just linked because I don’t own the copyright and I’m all sorts of touchy about that, but I couldn’t find a commons picture that conveyed the same feeling!)

A Writer's Most Important Trait

I know I haven't been doing this very long, at least not with official author credentials, but I have a couple bits of advice to share, so I'm gonna share them!

You can find a million blogs/websites online that tell you how to be a good writer, and I'm sure they all have nuggets of juicy and valuable wisdom. Some folks will rightly claim that having a great imagination is what you need to be a good writer. I don't disagree. Creativity will take you far. Others may say that you just need determination and to practice your craft, and eventually you'll get there. I slightly disagree with that, but on the whole, I think it's great advice.

But the thing is, if you want to write romance where emotion is king, the most important trait you can have is Empathy. If you can't really put yourself into someone else's shoes(which does take imagination, sometimes a lot of it!), then you can't be a selling romance writer. Not until you learn how. And really, all good fiction is character driven, so I believe this applies across the genre divides, but unequivocallyin romance.

I think the empathy level of romance writers is higher than average and that's why the romance writing community is so supportive, but there have been some instances(in the past couple months mostly) that have made me want to shake a baby author and say... Imagine it was you before you ________.

This even goes past writing and into the professional persona you have to craft. Everyone wants to work with folks who are easy to work with. Authors want to work with editors who are easy to work with. Editors want to work with authors who are easy to work with. Dairy cows want to work with farmers who have soft hands... and therefore are easy to work with!

Scared bunny

I say this with all love: Most writers(me included) at heart are a bunch of neurotic, paranoid, baby rabbits with a crack addiction. Great imaginations mean we're Great Worriers. There may be no snarling beagle cornering us, staring us down with those pointy teeth and floppy ears of DOOM... but we can picture it! So the fear is very real. The fear of submitting. The fear that our submission has been lost/ignored/destroyed-by-internet-gremlins... The fear that the editor hates our story(AND US!) and just can't find a nice way to tell us to stop with all the submitting already! The fear that our new editor is lamenting being saddled with us and our questionable writing skills...(Did you see my windmill arm flailing a couple weeks ago?)

Stop. Put that bunny back in his hutch and take away his lunch money.

Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy.

That is all :)

Betraying Your Voice Is Bad

I also speel gud

With an eye toward revision and submission, I picked up a novella I wrote last summer. It was written about two months before I wrote my SYTYCW entry, and I didn't think that there would be much difference in the writing style.

Wrong.

I remember now that I'd read something... some piece of writing advice(like I do) and I'd decided to Improve My Writing by incorporating this advice into my style.

The result? I completely lost my voice.

I read the first couple chapters and it was like someone else wrote it.

Someone slow.

With a limited vocabulary and stunted imagination!

Maybe someone in a coma, or perhaps this is what it would be like if a zombie tried to write a novella. A novella about zombies.

Bad. So bad.

I'm sure my skill set has changed, improved since last summer. With the revision letters, I'm getting an idea of my problem areas and learning what I need to do to address. All that is good, but I've come to the conclusion that in trying so hard to WRITE RIGHT, I sabotaged myself.

Gearing up to rewrite it now, and actually excited to do so, but so dismayed at this feat of ridiculousness I perpetrated like... six months ago.

Lesson learned. If it ain't broke, stop messing with it! Work on craft, not on voice. I've got my voice, and I'm comfortable with it. I like it. Now I need to concentrate on effective storytelling.