If one book's done this well, you want to write another one that does just as well. There's that horror of the second novel that doesn't match up.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Each book has been different and has been challenging in its own way to write.
The first book you write because of the way it makes you feel. The second one you can't help but wonder how it's going to make the reader feel.
I always want to write something better than the last book.
With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.
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.
The difficulty of writing a second novel is directly proportional to how successful the first novel was, it seems.
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 don't write the same book twice.
I really strive to bring something new to each book. I don't want to write the same book over and over again.
Writing a novel is not at all like riding a bike. Writing a novel is like having to redesign a bike, based on laws of physics that you don't understand, in a new universe. So having written one novel does nothing for you when you have to write the second one.