Second novel syndrome

I am a walking cliche, in lots of ways. I love old movies, Audrey Hepburn, Zooey Deschanel, cats, coffee, Amelie, Paris and many other things that you would expect me to love (although I also love kung fu movies and going to the dentist). I have discovered a new way in which I am a walking cliche - I am writing a Difficult Second Novel. There is a long and noble history behind the Difficult Second Novel, and I think it is a matter of failing to live up to expectations. Arundhati Roy, the author of The God of Small Things (one of my very favourite books, and one of the two books in which I would not change even one word - The Bone People being the other) is famous for refusing to write another novel. For a while it seemed as if she had washed her hands of that whole business - but apparently she's writing one now. Not that I'm comparing myself to Roy - I mean, my first book hasn't even been released yet (although it's looming ever larger on the horizon) and I'm worrying about my second. That seems a little bit like worrying about what colour your Porsche will be when you win the Lottery. And it's easier for me than it is for writers whose first novel is already out in the world and reviewed - there aren't so many people to try to please.

So why is the second novel so hard? I think there are a few possibilities. A first novel often has autobiographical elements - mine certainly did - and you are spending time with people and in places that you know intimately. The second novel is often more removed, requiring more research and more technique. I think that the second novel could also be a more conscious and more constructed thing than the first. Writing is a job now. You are an author with a capital A, with all the expectations that brings, and you feel more pressure to deliver something competent, with no 'I'm a newbie' excuses. Personally, I feel like having a busy and chaotic year hasn't helped. At least, I'm sure the experiences of this year will help with my writing further down the track, but at the moment they're just making it harder to concentrate. I almost need to cultivate a sort of deliberate boredom to really concentrate on writing - narrow my focus right down, have a rigid routine and remove all distractions so that I have nothing else to do BUT write.

I think my conclusion, after all this, is to stop navel-gazing and second-guessing myself and to just get on with it. And then I can start complaining about the Difficult Third Novel.

"The problem with a second novel is that it takes almost no time to write compared with a first novel. If I write my first novel in a month at the age of 23, and my second novel takes me two years, which have I written more quickly? The second, of course. The first took 23 years, and contains all the experience, pain, stored-up artistry, anger, love, hope, comic invention and despair of that lifetime. The second is an act of professional writing. That is why it is so much more difficult." - Stephen Fry