The Difference In a First and a Second Book

 

Last night, I did the impossible, again: I finished a draft of a book. And not just any book, but the book I’m publishing this fall! Let’s all take a life break and dance for a minute…

Yesssss. All the exciting! 

But along with exciting, comes some lessons learned. Lessons I wanted to share with you guys today, in hopes it might help someone. So I present my silly, somewhat sarcastic, occasionally serious…

Things I Learned Between Writing My First and Second Books Post of Seriousness. 

I had an amazing time writing AS YOU TURN AWAY. I cried approximately 1000 times while writing it. I laughed a lot, too. I can’t wait to bring y’all Reece and Ethan’s stories! Writing AYTA was such a growing-up for me, transitioning from writing fan fics and original characters with several friends for years. Suddenly I was writing A Book. And it was serious business.

Like really serious. TOO serious. I will always always love my little book. I adore Quinn and Jonah and their struggles, and banter and swoons. I knew going in that I wasn’t writing a book all about swoons, or all about issues. I wanted to find a balance, and I think I did. But I might have gotten a TAD too caught up in searching for that balance. I was sure I knew just what my book needed — and what it didn’t. I wouldn’t have this trope or that one, or that one. I got a bit obsessed.

 

 

So yeah, that’s my first thing I learned. How to be relaxed and focus less on the “rules” and less on just writing a story from my heart. ONE SONG AWAY has swoons AND tears AND humor AND lots of cool life/NA-ish things, and it came easier this time. It felt more organic. And I liked that, a lot! I had SO much fun writing OSA, because it was just…like breathing. I wasn’t hung up on anything other than just letting this story flow.

Another problem I kept having while writing AYTA was wanting to edit. It took me about 10 months to write a full first draft of AYTA. It took me a little under 3 months to write this first draft of OSA. Editing is still a little scary, but other than a few consistency fixes (like when I’d change the name of something/someone) in this draft, I didn’t really edit. I didn’t go back and re-read everything I wrote. I didn’t get a few chapters written and then stall out for a month like with AYTA.

I didn’t let any awkward parts stop me. I kept going. I told myself “get the words on the page. Fix ‘em later.” And my draft time was slashed, like I said. And it felt GREAT. There weren’t any of these moments with the book, where I just wanted to set it on fire:

Because it’s a first draft. FIRST. OF MANY. By the time the world reads it, scenes will have been cut. Added. Things changed. Improved. So DON’T SWEAT IT. Don’t edit everything, writers. Get the words on the paper/page.

Something else that I had LOADS more fun with was the swoons. Jonah and Quinn were a sort of slow burn, but I loved Sophie-Claire and Jake because they got to have that fun banter and flirtation. They had a past, but it wasn’t the sort of angsty past Jonah and Quinn shared. Every couple is different, and I got to show that with SC and Jake. Watching them grow together was so much fun!

 

I can neither confirm nor deny that the swoon level in ONE SONG AWAY is a lot higher than in AYTA. I didn’t want to write a book where the romance or sex overtook the plot, but I DID want to write a fun book where the characters got to explore grown up relationships. I love the first flush of romance in YA, but what I love about NA is that you can really explore your characters and their sexuality. Neither Jake or Sophie are virgins OR abstinent, and I loved being able to present sex in a positive light.

Plus it was just so damned FUN to write them trying to pretend they weren’t attracted to each other.

Finally, among other things I loved how much more confident I felt writing this book. With AYTA, I was scared. Scared to finish, scared to publish. I was excited too, don’t get me wrong. But writing OSA has been different. I’m sure of what I’m doing. I’m still a bit nervous, but I’m not scared. I know I’ve written a good book. I know I’ll get better with each edit. With every book. I know I have a lot left to learn, and that there are better authors out there. 

But I FINISHED MY BOOK. And for just this one moment, I get to be all:

If you’d like to add ONE SONG AWAY to your TBR on Goodreads, well, that would make me as happy as a baby kitty rolling around on something soft.