The First Week Sucks

Turns out Scott was right: it wasn't just the first day of writing the sequel to Magic or Madness that went less than swimmingly, it was the whole damned week. I did not write a thousand words a day (that glorious goal that I managed so easily in Mexico). Last week I barely squeezed out 240 words a day, which is crap, even for me. (Please to excuse scatological imagery, but I am talking about constipation.)

Starting a new book is so fraught: the blank screen. Glaringly white, blindingly empty. It fills me with terror. Can I do this? The answer should be: yes, I can. I've already written four books, The Battle of the Sexes published in 2002 and Magic or Madness due out in March 2005 as well as two unpublished numbers (one won't ever be, the other I'm still hoping). I have written books, therefore I can write books.

At least you'd think, wouldn't you? Every time I've started a new book I've gone through the oh-my-God-what-am-I-doing-I-can't-write-a-book stage (while writing the Book That Will Never Be Published I never got past that stage). I've stared at the blank screen, typed crap, deleted crap, checked my email, my web page stats, all my favourite blogs and news sites, started writing this musing (funny how writing about not writing is so much easier than writing), played some Orisinal games, turned to all the non-new-book work that has to be done (editing other people's writing, paying bills, and assorted other admin), played some more Orisinal games, written some more crap, deleted it, phoned friends and gossiped, written some more crap, pretended it was good and not deleted it, decided I was hungry, turned back to non-new-book work, eaten, and repeat many, many times. How do people with children, or day jobs, or both ever write a word?

In Mexico I had almost no starting-a-new-book difficulties for the following reasons:

1. no internet access where I was writing
2. no work to do but write the book
3. no housework (see no. 2)
4. no friends

What if I can now only write books in Mexico? Or what if I can only write in NYC and Sydney if I turn the internet off, hire a housekeeper, disconnect the phone and dump all my friends?

I read somewhere that Samuel R. Delany always begins the first page of his next book immediately after finishing the last one. Apparently, Anthony Trollope did the same thing. What a superb idea! I wish I could try it. Unfortunately, as soon as I type The End I go into celebration mode. An I-finished-the-book dance has to be danced, champagne has to be drunk, caviar eaten, everyone I know has to be phoned or emailed, usually while I'm champagne giddy. All of this precludes the writing of the first page of the next book.

These are the events in a book's life that must be celebrated:

1. completion of first draft
2. completion of a draft good enough to be sent to editors
3. acceptance of final version of manuscript by editors
4. appearance of Advance Readers' Copies (otherwise known as bound galleys)
5. actual publication

(There are other possible events in a book's life that require celebration but I am far too superstitious to mention what they are in case merely mentioning them will prevent them happening.)

Here's a tricky question for my handful of readers: Q: What do I love best about being a writer? A: drinking champagne.

It is many hours, okay, days, alright, yes, weeks after the completion of the first draft of the previous book before I can start writing the next book. Mostly because, as is evident from the paragraph above, the previous book has to be rewritten and rewritten and rewritten again. Then there are the copyedits to be checked and the bound galleys. I turn to the new book only when it's a total emergency if it doesn't get started soon, which would be about now.

Beginning the second book of a trilogy is even scarier than merely starting a new book. How to get back into that world? What if it's not as good as the first one? There's all the anxiety of not wanting to fall into dread middle bookitis, such as writing a book that only makes sense if you've read book one, or is just a bridge between books one and three, or is merely book one repeated, or goes off in completely unprepared for directions and annoys any possible audience so much they are left with zero interest in book three.

It's difficult to write a sentence, let alone whole paragraphs and chapters with all these worries buzzing around in my brain. This is why I have adopted the stratagem of pretending it's a standalone book that has nothing to do with any previous book. Trilogy? What trilogy? That leaves me with only the standard new bookitis, writer's procrastination troubles to deal with.

Piece of cake. Thousand words a day, here I come.

New York City, 22 June 2004

© 2004 Justine Larbalestier

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