Second Book Syndrome is a unique experience that can affect any writer. Today, author Uju Asika talks about what she learned while tackling Second Book Syndrome and gives advice on navigating it. 

There’s something immensely powerful about completing your first book. For a brief moment, you feel invincible. After all, pretty much everyone you meet thinks they have a book in them, but not many people actually sit down to write it.

I wrote my first book, Bringing Up Race, in the midst of a global pandemic. Writing my next book, a picture book for younger readers, was a much less stressful experience. So it was actually with my third book, aimed at grownups again, that Second Book Syndrome kicked in.

Not every piece of writing advice will apply to you —  and that’s okay! Sometimes, your writing strategies will change as you go through life or learn more about yourself. NaNo Participant Clara Ward shares writing advice that they’ve learned over time.

There’s no right way to write. Writing—like life—is about finding your best fit. What follows are tricks that worked for me. Please borrow what works best for you right now. (Then save a few ideas for future you!)

I wrote my first novel four decades ago, when I was thirteen. I’ve written while juggling three jobs or zero. I’ve written as a kid, a parent, and an empty-nester. I’ve learned from my own neurodiversity and mental health challenges along the way.

Each struggle taught me how to customize my writing practice. Here’s a list of what worked for me at different stages. Adapt as you see fit.

Can you successfully write while also being a parent? NaNo Participant Desiree S. Brown confidently says yes, you can do both. Desiree offers heartfelt words of inspiration to other author-parents out there.

My eyes were heavy with sleep as I plodded over to my son’s crib. I remember holding him in a state of awe, but I was also terrified. I hadn’t written in months—not from lack of trying—and had just emerged from a digital rabbit hole.

Desperate for pointers from seasoned author-parents, I asked Google, “How do authors write while raising kids?”

I expected encouragement, but found Lauren Sandler’s essay The Secret to Being Both a Successful Writer and Mother: Have Just One Kid and Cyril Connolly’s famous quote: “There’s no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.”

You can write and be a parent.

No matter your age, NaNoWriMo has something to offer for you. For participant, Dorothy Wong, Camp NaNoWriMo gave her the chance to finish a novel! Read below to learn about her experience and what she gained during her writing journey.

The year I turned forty, I took a twelve month leave from my job. With no work commitments, I thought I would finally write my novel. While I ended up with a blog full of chatty travel posts and fantastic memories, I didn’t write my book, not even a rough outline. Anytime I tried, I found myself distracted and overwhelmed. If I couldn’t write during that sabbatical year, I told myself, I was never going to write anything. And for almost a decade, I didn’t.

Then a friend posted on Facebook that she was attempting a month-long writing challenge called NaNoWriMo. My first thought was, “Why would anyone voluntarily sign up for that?”. I couldn’t imagine putting myself under that time pressure to produce an actual novel.

October is Filipino American History Month. With more than 4.2 million individuals of Filipino descent here in the U.S., we know there are at least 4.2 million stories to cherish and celebrate! Today’s story comes from Josie Gepulle, our fall 2022 Editorial intern and proud Filipino American.

It wasn’t until I was in my second year of college that I got my first reading assignment on Filipino American stories.

Sarah Hughes is a NaNoWriMo Winner and someone who’s turned a series of hard knocks into fuel for her writer’s forge. Sarah shares an inspirational turning point in her life and how NaNoWriMo helped to facilitate a spiritual renewal at a time of great personal upheaval.

Last summer, I did the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Cutting toxicity out of your life sounds like it should be easy and simple, but that’s rarely the case. It can be difficult and scary—especially when the toxicity is coming from someone who is supposed to love and support you no matter what. In July 2020, I cut contact with my mother. That is when a new chapter of my life began.

Writing a novel had always been on my radar, but I always felt like it was too lofty of a goal for me. It sounded like something other people do. I grew up being constantly worn down about my dreams and goals to the point where I stopped making them. Each year as November approached, NaNoWriMo would light a spark in the back of my mind. I always put it out. I didn’t think my ideas were good enough and I definitely didn’t think I was capable of writing 50,000 words in just 30 days.

2020 was different. I found myself in the fall of 2020 starting my life anew. I was finally free from the control and manipulation I had lived under my whole life, and at 25 years old I was just starting to figure out who I was as a person. This was both frightening and exhilarating. November rolled around at the perfect time. Finally, I was ready to write my novel.

Stacey Harris credits NaNoWriMo for kickstarting her success with novel writing, but she didn’t come by that easily. She’s here to talk about the long and winding road it took to reach that summit, some tips for breaking unproductive patterns, and how it’s never too late to arrive.

My first NaNoWriMo was November 2011—I wrote 5,263 words.

It took me 9 years—and 6 NaNo’s—before I would write 50,007 words and achieve my first win in 2019.

So, if you’re struggling to get your first win, well, this one’s for you!

It took 3 big changes in how I approached writing before I finally captured that elusive win. I’ve now won NaNo twice (2019, 2020), wrote a third 70k novel in three months in 2020, and I’m already excited for NaNo 2021.

PSA: What worked for me won’t necessarily work for you—but trying something new might help you achieve your NaNoWriMo dreams.

How has participating in NaNoWriMo impacted you? Long-time Wrimo Elizabeth Braughler describes her success at NaNoWriMo as “life-changing” and seeks to share that transformative experience with others: 

“Our library hosts what?” 

I stared at the message I’d received in reply to my inquiry on local writing groups. It had taken everything in me to hit send, to admit to someone other than my family that I was actively writing. Attempting a full fledged novel, no less.

I knew it wasn’t going well. I’d been at the same story for well over a year, with only a few chapters and a million (or so it felt) rewrites. I couldn’t push through and my motivation was lagging. I was only writing when I felt inspired, which meant I wasn’t writing.

Enter NaNoWriMo, and — at the risk of giving away my happy ending — I won my first ever NaNo.

Most of you probably already know why I had that success, because you’ve experienced it firsthand. NaNoWriMo means a lot of things to a lot of different people and, for me, it was the stepping-stone that would formulate my writing process.

February is Black History Month! Of course, history isn’t just something that happened a long time ago, it’s what we create every day. Today, NaNoWriMo Community Manager Chanda Briggs is here to talk about celebrating Black creativity:

I have been with NaNoWriMo for almost two years now, as the Community Manager. In that time, I can honestly say I have enjoyed the most growth, trust, and the most ability to apply my range of skills and passions than I have in the whole of my adulthood. As a Black woman, I can’t tell you how elusive that experience can be. There is certainly no shortage of talent among Black people, and if nothing else, 2020 was a year in which so much of this talent was showcased. 

When I was young, I was a passionate poet. I wrote with a feverish abandon that seems to be rarer as I get older, but I was hesitant to share my work with anyone, lest the words so lovingly scribbled from the depths of my soul be considered unworthy by a reader. It took quite a bit of encouragement from a mentor of mine to allow him to read them, and he was the first person to tell me I was a good writer. That simple validation changed my life, so I know the importance of encouragement and even more so, of community support. This is what I love most about NaNoWriMo and the work we do. 

When we feel free to write, no matter what type of writing it is, we are telling a story about ourselves: our interests, our ability to analyze and catalyze ideas, our hopes, dreams, fears, and aspirations. For BIPOC, it is all-too-common for the overarching societal narrative to be that our ideas, perspectives, and stories are unimportant, and have no place in the broader narrative of our world. For a long time, it was believed that there was no audience for these either. Both of these are simply untrue. 

Everyone has their own reasons for how they write, as well as their own voice and style. Take a glimpse into how NaNo Participant Audrey Shulman begins her drafts.

The NaNoWriMo finishers out there (congratulations) may disagree with me on this one, but for me, it’s the journey and not the destination, that makes writing worthwhile. As someone guilty of having at least three stories in the works at any time, the phrase “I’m finished” is usually reserved for meals.

The creative process in the build up to even starting a writing project is different for everyone, but for me it means weeks of my new characters acting out scene after scene in my mind as I walk the dog or take the train to work. Rather than mapping out a specific journey to the destination, I  leisurely linger/stroll/meander around at the bottom of the mountain.

What writer hasn’t felt like banging their head against the wall because of writer’s block? And there is always that one scene that just doesn’t seem to work the way you wish it would. Thanks to YWP Participant Anastasia  Sukhoverkhova for giving us a few tips to get through that dreaded scene!

Writing is not easy. While it is not that hard to imagine something in your mind, turning it into words and presenting it as a whole can be a challenging task. Sometimes even though you know what you need to write, you completely lose any motivation to actually do so. Those tricky scenes you don’t want to touch or those important moments that need your undivided attention can be put off for a long time. So, what can you do to actually get to writing them? Here are some helpful tips:

1. Stop and rethink.

If you can’t for the life of you write the scene, no matter how hard you try, most likely the problem is not you, but the scene itself. Of course, it looks so good in your head, but often, the way we imagine things is not the way we write them. Sometimes they turn out to be over-complicated or they just don’t fit for your writing style. What exactly bothers you when writing it? What is it you are failing to do? It is important to pause and think about the problem.

There is no such thing as a right and a wrong way to be inspired. Inspiration can come from just about anywhere and it can come at any time. Read about how YWP Participant Shriya Sardeshpande finds inspiration below. Who knows, it might just inspire you!

I have drawn inspiration for room decor from the label of a shampoo bottle, of all places. And as interesting as that is, one of the most important elements about it is that the inspiration was fully, totally, and completely unexpected. I find that this often happens in my writing, too.

Once, I was watching a video about advice for teen writers, and one of the things that really resonated with me was: don’t lock yourself away. Try to take a good look at the life around you for a while before you lock yourself in writer mode and make the keyboard (or pen) your roommate. Take in the colors and shapes that you see while on a bike ride. Hang on to the words someone said while they accidentally unmuted themselves on a Zoom meeting. Be an observer. 

In times like this, finding the desire to write can be hard, and sometimes finding the inspiration to be creative can feel like a Herculean task. Here are 3 ways that NaNo Participant Sabrina Howard assures can help inspire you to write your next adventure.

Scarcity is weighing heavily on people around the world, from lack of clean water, food, and natural resources to—in a more abstract sense—inspiration. Perhaps this year especially you’ve struggled to find inspiration in a world that seems to have lost its magic. What can you do when inspiration is hard to find?

In the words of Jurassic Park’s Dr. Ian Malcolm, “Life, uh, finds a way.” I wish I could give you a secret, a trick, a backdoor. But the truth is when things are hard to find, we grit our teeth and we look harder. Writers, too, must find a way.

Here are three different ways you can deepen your search for inspiration—in the familiar, the unfamiliar, and even the nonexistent:

Every writer knows that finding inspiration can be a fearsome hurdle to overcome. But thankfully, there is inspiration all around you, even when you don’t realize it. Listen to what NaNoWriMo Participant Winona Sharpe has to say on finding the spark to keep those flames burning!

Finding inspiration is one of the most difficult things about starting a project, but it can also be genuinely exciting. Feeling motivated to take on challenges big and small is easier when the spark of creativity is lit. We each have our own stories to tell—no two people will find the same things shouting out to them, “Write about me!” No matter the genre, the length of the project, whether you plan everything out or write by the seat of your pants, the following suggestions might be just what you need to feel inspired to write every day, every week, or every November.

Setting:

Consider where your story takes place. Often, I think less about setting than the other aspects of my writing, so I wanted to start here. Building your world can be as basic as you like, but a solid foundation is key. Here are some tips that you can try: