Falling in Love Again

Writing is non-monogamous and that's okay

My first manuscript took about seven years to finish. Within that time, I tried to give up on it and start something new, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’d like to think that was some sort of fate working—that for whatever reason, I was meant to finish it.

Well, then I did. You know what’s scarier than not being able to finish a novel? Actually finishing it.

Because then everything ahead of me was a blank space. My manuscript had characters and a world and drafts and drafts behind it to guide me—I hadn’t worked with a complete blank page for nearly a decade. I was terrified that I didn’t know how. That I would just create the same characters and the same general plot over and over again. And beyond that—I was scared that I could only ever love ALU. That writing another novel would never feel the same again.

ALU was the novel that taught me how to write a novel—but how was I supposed to know if I could write another different novel? How was I supposed to know that it didn’t just teach me how to write that novel?

During this time, I went on a trip to Oxford, UK which is very much a literary town, and then afterwards to London. I learned more about Lewis Carroll (would not recommend if he’s your favourite author, better to just let those sleeping dogs lie), and Charles Dickens and other literary greats and their lives.

And I thought, not for the first time, but perhaps the most powerfully, I don’t know if I have what it takes.

Me in Oxford

And yeah, I know, it’s not realistic to compare myself to people who wrote classics and have hindsight on their side. But still, it was paralyzingly scary.

But writing is like this—I think it will always be like this. You either push through all the scary, vulnerable stuff and keep going—or you give up. I’ve always been a writer. Finishing my first real novel wasn’t going to stop that. I was determined to fall in love again.

So I started working on an idea I had been thinking about for a while. I tried to ignore all those lingering doubts about being good enough, original enough, unique enough. I tried not to think about what would happen if I still couldn’t get ALU out of my head. And I don’t think I did anything that spectacular or different. I just wrote—like I learned to write.

And I fell in love again.

My newest manuscript (let’s call it TOCI for fun) has evolved and grown in the same way ALU did. It became its own thing, and it’s teaching me how to be a better writer with every word. I hope it is proof that I can do it, but I think when I finish it, I’ll go through the same thing all over again. Because just because I wrote two novels doesn’t mean I can write three, right!?

As for all those literary greats, I had this motto: “you don’t need to be a literary great, you can just be a literary good.” And I’ll stand by that. Anyway, a lot of those guys were racist.