Words of Encouragement for Writing that Famous “Second Novel” @KeziahFrost

LUCY BURDETTE: I had an email exchange with our Red Writer friend Keziah Frost a while back, and she was mentioning how different (and how much harder) the experience of writing the second novel was, as compared with the first. (Have you read THE RELUCTANT FORTUNE-TELLER? It's a perfect summer book...) And I said, "this would make a great post." And she said, "I'll write it." So welcome Keziah!

KEZIAH FROST:

Words of Encouragement for Writing that Famous “Second Novel”

When I am not writing novels, I am a psychotherapist.
These two jobs are not as different as they might seem. After all, in both cases, it’s all about the story.
As a therapist, I sometimes remind clients of the saying, “Beware of comparing your insides to someone else’s outsides.”
What that means is that we have a tendency to look at another person’s made-up, dressed-up, prepared-for-public-consumption version of herself and then look at ourselves on our worst day and think, I just don’t measure up.
 But wait!
That, right there, is what your therapist would call a “cognitive distortion.” In other words, it’s a mistaken idea.
In the same way, a writer setting out to compose her second novel  needs to remember that her first draft is not going to look like someone else’s published novel. (Or even her own previously published novel.) 
You see, I easily and giddily wrote my first novel, The Reluctant Fortune-Teller. I laughed out loud as I wrote. And what did I write? Why, I just went and wrote the book I wanted to read, that’s all. (I’d heard that advice, and it sounded good to me.) What could be easier?  And, because the stars aligned, a wonderful agent agreed to work with me, and then HarperCollins/Harlequin/Park Row published it, much to my eternal gratitude. I was too naïve to worry about anything at any point in the process. And then it was time to write novel number two. However, now, I was a different writer. I had learned many things I hadn’t known when typing away about Norbert, the retired accountant who is forced to become a card reader to make ends meet.

The first time, I was unaware of all that lay ahead of me: the editing process, the self-promotion, and the necessity of getting and staying plugged in to social media. I was unaware of how many zillions of books are published every single week. I hadn’t started trying to read all of them, so that I would know what readers liked and publishers bought. In short, the first time, I was wrapped in a cocoon of blissful ignorance—and that ignorance protected my creativity.
I was too innocent to compare my insides to anyone else’s outsides.
Fast forward to my current work-in-progress.
As I began to write a humorous mystery, I studied the best I could find in the genre. I made the mistake of comparing finished, published, celebrated works with my first rough draft. 
Of course, I began to feel a crisis of confidence.
It took me a few months, but now I get it.
Don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides. And don’t compare your rough draft with someone else’s published work!
Every novel you love began with a rough draft, and was polished and perfected before you laid eyes on it. Obvious? Yes. Easy for a new writer to forget? Absolutely.
So now, I ‘m back to where I started:  having fun, making myself laugh as I write, and making another book I would love to read. There will be work ahead, polishing, and perfecting. That’s all part of the fun.
I think that as much as possible, writing—and life--should be fun. As writers, and as livers of life, we do so much better when we don’t take ourselves so seriously.
All of us—writers and other human beings-- need to quiet that inner critic, and set ourselves free to play. 
No one else can tell your story. 


How about you? Do you have an Inner Critic to manage? How do you keep your Inner Critic under control? And what do you do to make sure that you keep on having fun?

Keziah Frost is a psychotherapist who has felt she was “supposed to” write novels since she was in fifth grade. That was five decades ago, and she is thrilled to see her first novel ready to go to print. She had so much fun writing this one, she hopes to write many, many more. (Says Lucy: And check out her blog, which includes Norbert's readings of various book people, including Lucy herself...)