With the first novel, I had to tell myself, 'No one is ever going to read it, so you might as well just write it.' With the second, I was pretty sure someone was going to read it.
I think what happens to young writers is that they use up every life experience that they have had up to that point for their first novel. Then you have to come up with something for the second novel, but you really don't have anything to say.
Second novels are bears. As are other people's expectations for them. I think taking the time you need with the second book is key. Writers spend years and years on their first novels and then are often expected to turn out a second at warp speed, a recipe for failure.
I started writing 'The Lobster Kings' the day after I sold my first novel, 'Touch.'
My first book deal was for two Mark Genevich novels. I hadn't planned on writing a second Genevich novel, but I was contracted to do so, and so there I was being introduced as a crime writer.
A lot of people have trouble with their second novel - the dreaded sophomore jinx. I wrote three books in between the two novels, and they just weren't very good.
The difficulty of writing a second novel is directly proportional to how successful the first novel was, it seems.
The disappointing second novel is measured against the brilliant first novel - often no novel lives up to the first. Literary improvement seems like an unfair expectation.
