Someone wrote me today asking what I meant in the post from a few days ago when I said that writing a second novel is a lot different than writing a first novel. I've been thinking about that a lot too, and how the situation I find myself in is incredibly similar, and also wonderfully different, than the last time.
First, the similarities. Both of my books were sold on a partial. With Icebergs, I had 150 pages written when my agent sent it out; with the Countess, it was 100. Both editors also asked for really tight 6-month deadlines for finishing the mss. (The Countess sold at the beginning of March, so if you're doing the math, that puts my deadline at the beginning of September. Yikes!) Both times I also had a full-time teaching position that sucked away a good chunk of my precious writing time.
Now for the differences.
The big difference, of course, is that this time I have a baby to take care of in addition to writing a novel and holding down a full-time teaching job. (Thank God for good babysitters and coffee!) Honestly, though, I look at this addition as a positive. I have to get home by 2 in the afternoon every day to let the babysitter off, so I have less time to fiddle on the internet researching Hungarian wedding dress styles from the 16th century if I'm going to get my pages done.
But the most important difference, the one that really matters, is experience.
From experience, I know that, having committed to some major plot points at certain moments in the story, I need to write toward those plot points in the first draft and not worry at the moment whether those are the right plot points. That's what a second draft is for. If I end up throwing out a lot of work later, that's OK. There's no way I can know if my plot points are the right ones until I've finished the whole draft, so worrying about it at this juncture is pointless.
From experience, I know that I will be happier meeting my deadline and having an imperfect first draft than missing it for the sake of a perfect one. What is a perfect first draft of a novel, after all? There are cliches, inconsistencies, and general cheez in
the novel at the moment, and that's OK. That's what an editor is for.
From experience, I know that a weekend off with my family, or a week at the beach without my computer, will be as valuable to my book as working 7 days a week, 365 days a year, no matter how tight my deadline is.
The two books couldn't be more different. The first was a family epic with a complicated time structure and multiple narrators. The second is a single-narrator confessional, kind of a cross between Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and The Silence of the Lambs.
Writing Icebergs taught me how to write Icebergs. Writing The Countess is teaching me how to write The Countess. Each novel is a very different experience. And yet one builds on the other, in both craft and process.
Thank God. Because no one should have to write a first novel twice.
