Status Updates From People Like Her

“And other days you'll write something you like but find yourself wondering whether this new novel is going to turn out too different from the first book. And the longer you have spent on a book, the more the pressure builds up, and the higher you imagine everyone's expectations are going to be ...”

“And maybe that is why writing a second book is hard. Because just writing a book suddenly does not seem like such an achievement any more. And some days you'll write something you really like but then you find yourself wondering whether it is too much like something you wrote in the first book.”

“And you finish it. And you are delighted with yourself just for having finished it. And when you send it to an agent and they like it too you are so delighted with the book and with yourself that you walk around humming for days. And then someone says they want to publish it. And then suddenly you are a writer, a real writer, a soon-to-be-published writer.”

“You have an idea one day and you sit down that evening and start writing and what you are writing turns out pretty good and so you keep going and by the end of the week you have five thousand words and by the end of the month you have twenty thousand words. You show it to some close friends and they really like it so you keep going.”

“The thing no one tells you about your first novel is that it is by far the easiest one you'll ever write. You're young. You're arrogant.”

“We are all just women - women trying to do enough, be enough, have enough without ever having it all. Women smiling through the tiny tears, trying not to add our own frustrated sobs to the screaming tantrums.”