Oops! I did it again

(On finishing my second novel)

I have finished my second novel. It’s more accurate to say I have finished the first draft of my second novel, which we all know means the work is just beginning (especially if, like me, you write scrappy first drafts) but please, let me have my moment.

I am actually ecstatic about this. I have done it a second time. I have had an idea for a story and captured it in 78,000 words. This feels like miracle to me. First of all because I wasn’t sure I would EVER write another novel (more on this below) and secondly because 78,000 words for a first draft is a LOT for me. I am a chronic under-writer, and the first draft of The List of Suspicious Things was a meagre 65,000 words (for the non-novelists out there, 65,000 words is on the short side. The finished product was 105,000 words).

This time last year, I was nowhere near this place. I was completely stuck creatively. Frozen in fact. I had already had a number of false starts on book two, all of which I abandoned either because I wasn’t confident enough or passionate enough about the characters or the idea (though one of these I will be going back to at some point as I haven’t fully let go of it yet). It felt as though I couldn’t move for my entirely self-created fear of disappointing someone; my editor, my agent, and most importantly the incredible readers who have taken The List of Suspicious Things to their hearts.

I had in fact decided I might only ever write one book, and that would have to be good enough.

Then I started this Substack, as a way to un-freeze my tired, expectation flooded brain. It really helped me to have a place to write, every week, without any brief or agenda, to the handful of people who subscribed in those early days (I am so grateful to you all!). I found myself actually enjoying writing again as a consequence.

I also found that there was a strange power in giving up the idea of writing a second book. It allowed my weary mind and body the space and freedom to rest and rejuvenate. It created room for the idea for my second book to form subconsciously, and surprise me one day on a train from London to Somerset.

The moment the story for book two appeared in my brain I almost laughed out loud, it was so clearly ‘right.’ I felt the feelings I usually associate with ‘love at first sight.’ I had goosebumps, and a sense of aliveness wholly inappropriate to a GWR cross-county train from Paddington. It was all I could do to stop myself from turning around to the packed carriage and tell them what had just happened; however, I was so determined that I wouldn’t write another book at that point, that I actually told the idea to go away, and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. I am very grateful now that it didn’t. The idea persisted, and kept popping up again at inopportune moments, until I could ignore it no more.

Within a few weeks I accepted that this story wasn’t going anywhere and had scoped out the new novel and written the first 10,000 words to send off to my agent to see what she thought. I am represented by a brilliant, powerhouse of a woman (Nelle Andrew) who always, ALWAYS, tells me the truth, so I knew that her response would be all the things that Nelle is; quick, direct, and insightful. What I also knew was that if I had got it wrong, if this idea didn’t fly, then I wasn’t sure I had anything left (I am nothing if not dramatic!).

The morning I emailed the idea and extract to her, I pressed ‘send’ then got in the car to drive to the seaside and take a walk on the beach. I knew I couldn’t sit around and wait for an email (no-one tells you how much of being an author is waiting for emails!) and the best place for me was outside. But by the time I had got from my house to the seafront at Burnham-on-Sea, Nelle had emailed to say, ‘This is the one.’ The relief was enormous, my instincts were right.

But then of course I had to write it. This proved to be a lot trickier than it was the first time around. I have always found the mental aspect of writing a book way more challenging than the technical aspect (which is difficult enough), but this was challenging to the extent that I have essentially had to trick myself into writing on an almost daily basis in the form of an elaborate game of ‘let’s pretend.’

Here is a (not exhaustive) list of the mind games I have employed:

• Let’s pretend it’s your first book (treating it like an entirely new experience rather than comparing it to that of writing book one)

• Let’s pretend there are no expectations (especially from myself)

• Let’s pretend no/one cares/is going to read it (this might of course be true!)

• Let’s pretend it’s all going to work out either way (actually I do sort of believe this)

• Let’s pretend I know what I’m doing (I feel like the more I write the less I know)

Thanks to this psychological trickery, even through all the busyness and excitement & noise and joy and tiredness that has been my experience since the launch of The List of Suspicious Things, I now have a 78k first draft. As mentioned before, the real work begins now, of course, but just for the moment I am going to glory in the fact it exists, and sleep for about a week.