First novel vs. second novel

In the last eight months, I’ve finished two manuscripts of novels. Maybe that sounds braggy, but I don’t mean it to, since neither manuscript is published, so I might as well have spent the last eight months eating bonbons and napping on the couch. (Not to be defeatist about it, or anything.)

Anyway, I’ve noticed an interesting contrast between the process of writing my first novel and the process of writing my second. You know how they say that when a woman has her second child, the baby just pops right out? The second novel is kind of like that, too. Way easier. The first one was this long labor process of creating, writing, editing, and nitpicking — and I had no idea what I was doing the entire time. With the second one, though, I felt like an old pro, from start to finish. I cranked that thing out in a few months, edited it in a few days, and I guess I should probably be thinking about a third manuscript now. Yikes.

The biggest difference between my first novel and my second, though, is how I feel about the two. I have more confidence in my second novel. I want to tell people about it. I feel proud of it. None of this is to say that my first novel is bad, but just that novel writing has a fairly steep learning curve, and your later products are most likely going to be stronger than your earlier efforts. You learn the tricks of the trade. You develop your voice. You think more critically about plot and pacing and dialogue and all of the elements that make a novel readable (and, hopefully, saleable).

I hope that my confidence in this second piece of writing pays off and that agents and editors feel the same way, when it comes time to send it off. For now, I’m taking a few days off from novel writing while my trusted readers peruse my manuscript — but expect to hear more about it in the coming weeks and months.