Second book syndrome as a chronic illness
Writing's going fine, why do you ask?
I just turned in the fourth draft of my second novel. I’d been rewriting and editing it since November, if spending a month wallowing over how much work I still had to do ideating counts as writing, which in my book it totally does.
What people don’t talk about nearly enough, in my experience, is the strange combination of relief and depression that descends after you finish a book. (I use the word “finish” loosely, since the final manuscript for Book Two—which, I should definitely mention, is called WHEN I’M HER—hasn’t been accepted yet.) You’ve tossed the thing that has taken over your brain and all your free time for months/years into someone else’s yard. You haven’t started the next thing, because you don’t know if this thing will be good enough. So you’re a writer who isn’t writing, and while there’s plenty of other stuff to do in the meantime (see: my dining room table, below) you still feel a little bit purposeless.
I’m not exaggerating when I say writing this novel has been one of the more emotionally fraught experiences of my adult life. The Bookseller recently surveyed 108 authors, more than half of whom said publishing had negatively affected their mental health, and honestly? That tracks. Being an author can be intense and stressful, even when it goes well! For me the net effect of my book-publishing dreams coming true has been positive, but there have been moments of despair.
I said I’d been working on this draft since January November, but I’ve been working on the book since the end of 2020. THE OTHER ME sold as part of a two-book deal, which meant my agent and I didn’t have to worry about selling the follow-up to my debut, but I still had to come up with an idea my publisher would approve.
I submitted an eleven-page synopsis for a book I really thought was the one. It was built around a friendship between two women, and it had a road trip and women in rock bands in the ‘90s. Considering my experience as a woman in rock bands in the ‘90s, the details would practically write themselves!
It also had a pandemic as a major plot point. In 2020. Yeah.
So my publisher rejected that idea, I came up with a couple of others which they also turned down (rejection doesn’t stop after you get the book deal!) and eventually we settled on another concept, this one also about female friendship but of a different, toxic kind. The log line was “Single White Female but make it feminist.” It was heavily inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Persona, in which a nurse and her actress patient develop an uncanny and unhealthy connection, and my own junior-high memories of wishing I could swap places with the most popular girl in school.
My two main characters, Mary and Elizabeth, were college best friends who’d had a falling out, with the added twist that they could inhabit each other’s bodies. Mary, my scorned one, would attempt to take over Elizabeth’s body and charmed life permanently, only to find her new situation wasn’t so perfect after all.
(None of that has changed since the first draft, but literally everything else has.)
I hadn’t been able to follow the advice everyone gives you to have a draft of Book Two turned in before Book One comes out. But with such a strong premise, the writing would flow naturally, right?
Apparently there are writers who find writing easy. I used to be one of them before Dunning and Kruger came for me. But maybe trying to write a commercial thriller with a slow-paced, abstract psychological horror film as inspo was just never going to go smoothly!
The first draft I turned in to my editor (who has been amazing during this whole process) was met with equal parts enthusiasm and confusion. It was a great start! But she wasn’t quite sure where I was going with [subplot that shall not be named].
I needed to do a lot more work to pin down my characters’ goals and motivations and make those clear to the reader. I don’t naturally do a lot of hand-holding and reminding, and I needed to do more so readers wouldn’t get confused.
I also needed a plot that made linear sense, lol. Much like publishing itself, a book can’t work on vibes alone. So I went back and rewrote (twice), working with my agent and critique partners. I turned in second and third drafts that bore little resemblance to the first (which is as it should be). And I almost, kinda, burned myself out, working too hard while feeling guilty and panicked that I wasn’t producing fast enough, and doubting my entire ability to write a novel. I could tell I was (almost, kinda) burned out because when I got my editor’s notes on my third draft and they were two pages long, I cried.
Part of it was having to go back to this. Fucking. Book, of which I was thoroughly sick by this point. But I was also sure my editor was wondering why I couldn’t stick the landing in three drafts and, further, why she’d ever offered me a publishing contract. (I want to emphasize that all of this took place in my own head! My editor told me on multiple occasions that it was more important for the book to be right than fast, and if I didn’t believe her, that’s totally on me!)
Despite my struggles with this book, I still feel like WHEN I’M HER is getting closer with each draft, and I actually fell back in love with it during the latest round of edits. What’s striking is my process has actually been similar to the way I wrote THE OTHER ME. That novel also took several years and many drafts, and practically everything about it, from plot to subgenre, changed in the course of the writing. So why all the angst? The obvious difference is that, writing under contract, I have deadlines and the knowledge that I’m not the only one who will read those shitty early drafts. Deadlines are actually helpful for me, but it’s hard to let go of the fact that people in a position to affect my career are seeing work that isn’t my best. But I have to trust those people and my own ability, or the work can’t get better. Classic catch-22.
I also have to let go of the dream of being a fast writer. Maybe the next book will be easier (probably not, based on what I’ve heard from other authors!) but I have an entire full-time job that provides my health insurance and family and friends I would occasionally like to spend time with. Writing and publishing are not life, even though it seems that way sometimes.
This is feeling a little solipsistic, but I feel like it’s important to acknowledge the self-doubt and creative difficulties authors go through even after they’ve achieved levels of success they previously only dreamed of. So much of what I see online from writers is either career highlight reels or authoritatively presented writing advice. While it makes sense to put your most professional face forward, behind that many of us are still eight insecurities in a trench coat.
I’m a little leery of putting these feelings (“Buy my book! I only hated it for part of the time I was writing it!”) into a world where toxic positivity is so prevalent and authors are expected to sell themselves. I worry that anything but full-throated cheerleading is taken as a lukewarm endorsement at best.
So I’ll say this: I still don’t know if this draft of WHEN I’M HER is the version that will end up on shelves, but it’s a great fucking book. The two main characters are complex binary stars. A dual-timeline plot winds the tension tighter and tighter, with elements of domestic suspense and psychological horror. The ending is satisfying but doesn’t tie everything up with a bow. If you enjoy grounded speculative fiction and complicated female characters who aren’t always likeable, WHEN I’M HER is your jam, and I will sell the hell out of it as soon as it’s up for preorder. (I hope my publisher will also be selling the hell out of it, since with my platform I could move maybe 100 copies.)
In the meantime, being between writing projects is kind of glorious. I’m sending out a newsletter, I updated my website for the first time in a year, and I spent almost a whole Sunday reading a book!
If my editor comes back with more pages of notes, I’ll probably cry. Then wallow a bit. And then get on with the work.
Author updates
I went to the Orlando Book Festival a couple of weeks ago and had a great time! R.L. Stine was there, which took me back to middle school. Now I just need to meet Stephen King and Kevin McFadden/Christopher Pike.
Reading/watching/listening
I’ve been going through the playlist I made for WHEN I’M HER. It’s existed since I started the book, and I can trace songs that gel with plot points I’ve since gotten rid of. Wild!
If you enjoy my ramblings, you might like my book! NPR said The Other Me “resists categorization, blending the impossible with the probable with the downright plausible.”
Out now in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and ebook!
Love this post. Feels very true.
1. I've already told you how TRASH I am for anything that comps to Single White Female, right? I am beyond excited for this book.
2. Fuck toxic positivity. I like seeing the struggle and the doubts because they're very real. I've def been there.
3. "Solipsistic" is one of my favorite words, incidentally.
4. It was great seeing you at the Orlando Book Festival!!