Work begins

I’m writing the second book now. I actually started it more than a year ago, and set down the first sentences within a couple months of finishing the first one. I’ve fiddled with it off and on since, but not felt compelled to really sit down and write more than a few days here or there.

I even started to worry recently that the second book wasn’t going to come for me. The circumstances of this book versus the first are so different. Well I suppose they always are, and whatever the specifics, everyone’s second outing is bound up in far more anxiety and pressure than the first, isn’t it? Sophomore slump and alla that.

I just let myself be. Focused on other things and trusted (hoped?) that the inspiration would push me forward just as it did before, that I would begin when I was ready. Still, I couldn’t help but worry as the days and weeks became months, and I’ve found myself opening up the file to see if I couldn’t just help things along a bit.

It is coming. Not in that lightning strike of inspiration that happened three years ago, but more like a slow burn, a match set to kindling, slowly building to a steady fire. I’m still in the kindling stage — well, still waiting for the newspaper to catch the kindling afire, actually — but I think it’s going to be okay. I’ve felt the need to carry my writing journal again, though I haven’t written much in it yet, and find myself putting together playlists again, as well. These are signs that I’m getting ready for the ideas to come, and that familiar drive to propel me once again.

thankful for: gary lightbody, earphones, dark, rainy days