When I started writing my first novel, I didn’t give the process much thought. I had the clear image of Antoine, a blonde vagabond, and typed out the story that unfolded in my head, sentence after sentence. Because of the full-time job I had at the time, it took me 14 months to complete it. Sometimes, I was stuck and skipped parts that I had to go back to at the end. Altogether, it was a little chaotic, and it took a lot of energy, but the puzzle came together.
Right after sending the manuscript to my editor, I started on my second book. One morning in early December, I woke up, sat down at the table, and wrote the first chapters of “The Closerie”. This time around, I wanted to do it better and continued to write the story from beginning to end. I rarely skipped any scene and wrote the images in my head straight out onto paper in 6 months flat. Even though I was a lot quicker this time, it was emotionally a lot more intense: the highs and lows, the tears, the euphoria.
However, crossing the finishing line so authoritatively was a wonderful feeling. I still didn’t know how writing worked exactly, but I knew I could make it work for me. I had written two novels, and there was no reason to believe I couldn’t write another one.
Like the year before, I started with my third novel right after handing in my second manuscript. But this time I failed. I had written a strong beginning and was on track; but then, someone I loved very deeply passed away. It shook me up so badly that I couldn’t write a line for a couple of months. After taking up the pen again, I found my way back into the story, but I noticed a change. I found myself thinking about what writing is, if a story should be composed instead of spontaneously created. Doubt started creeping in, and I spent more time thinking about writing than actually writing.
Simultaneously, I went through a big emotional storm, which was of course due to my loss but also to questioning what I was doing, which played havoc with my ability to make any headway on my novel. The naïve joy of writing had been taken away from me and replaced by insecurity, reflections on writing, and a strong need to procrastinate. It was difficult, but I slowly progressed; and when I was writing one of the last chapters of my third novel, I read what Sally Ronney had said to the New York Times about writing her third book: “It was like I’d never done it before!”
Written just a few, crucial years earlier in her 20s, both “Conversations With Friends” and “Normal People” had all but poured out of her. “Off the top of my head is a bad way of putting it,” she said, “but I wasn’t thinking, what is a voice? What is a protagonist? It was so natural, all those questions just answered themselves as I wrote.”
By the time she got to New York, the pressures had accumulated, and she worried she’d buckle under them, never write again. “Wait, how do you write one of these?” she’d asked herself. “It was like I’d never done it before!”
New York Times
I can’t help but wonder how the fourth novel will go.
