Writing a Second Novel

Challenged by the Paul Graham essay quoted below, I’m going to use this place to put some rough ideas into words, in the hopes that doing so will bring clarity to things I’ve been thinking about recently.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing. I’m searching for a good story to tell that’s unique, entertaining and won’t be depressing to work on. I finished writing my first novel three years ago and, feeling inspired, I started in on a second. I made a good ten-thousand word start on a mystery featuring a serial killer who injected his victims with drugs. I did research with an emergency ward specialist on things like how fast different drugs kicked in, how to “hide the entry mode” when injecting, and how difficult it would be for a coroner to determine the death wasn’t an overdose. I wrote an opening scene from the murderer’s point-of-view, describing a body “rasping and gurgling”, its “arms and legs splayed comically.” From my research, I included graphic details that amplified the horror. It was very hard to write, but identifying and tracking down this bad guy was to be the central mystery of the book.

I wrote steadily for five months without mentioning murder again. When it finally became impossible to avoid the fundamental premise of the story, and to describe the discovery of the first body, I couldn’t do it. It took a while for me to understand that I stopped writing because it wasn’t fun anymore. Fun is an important ingredient for me. The first book (Buddy Fucking Forever) was a joy to write - out of the gate and until the end. I want the second book to be the same. So I started again.

I’ve been collecting the bits and chunks that are slowly becoming the new story, but there’s a lot that’s still not done. I remind myself, and anyone who asks about my progress, that Donna Tartt, the author of the brilliant award winning books, The Secret History and The Goldfinch takes ten years between novels. I don’t want to step into the flow of writing until I have a good story to tell, so until I do, I’m accumulating notes and doing research. And throwing ideas against each other in the hopes that some kind of fission will result. There are a few overarching problems I need to come to terms with. I’ll probably try to work them out here.