Writing the second novel was a vastly different experience than the first. This time, there were expectations, both internal and external. Publishers and readers were waiting for another novel and I, with a bestseller to claim, expected to have gotten better at the craft of writing. The opposite was true. I felt paralyzed and everything I wrote felt contrived. The more I tried the greater my self-doubt. My agent relayed a conversation she had with a publisher and all I remember is this "Looks like Susan is going to be another one book author." I think my agent thought that could be a motivator, but it wasn't. To the contrary. I threw out two partly written manuscripts I had written and stopped writing for a few months. I did, after all, still have a full time job in medical research and medical writing (all my formal education has been in biological science. But that's another story).

I went back to writing after a while and although I wasn't entirely happy with what I was producing, I just kept at it. This time, the writing didn't feel forced, even though it was bad. The difference is that I gave myself permission to write a terrible first draft, and in my mind, I likened it the art of sculpting. A sculptor starts with a large, amorphous lump of clay in the general shape of the final creation. For me, the mass of written pages was my lump of clay, which I could go back and shape, chisel, and refine later. But I had to produce the "clay" first. And that's what I did. I had about 450 pages of mostly stream of consciousness writing. Through that process, the contours of the characters began to emerge and I got to know them in the subsequent rewriting, where they came more into focus. As always, I fell in love with each of them and sought to know and understand them so they, eventually, could guide in writing their lives.

Of course, I had an editor whom I trust in this process: Martha Hughes. She saw the terrible writing and gave me general impressions, which were immensely helpful. She never judged, was always encouraging and always helpful. Having someone I could trust to read the early bad writing draft was essential. And for me, criticism at that stage doesn't work. I already knew it wasn't yet good and I needed to hear what worked. I needed to hear encouragement because that's how insecure I felt.

I eventually felt good enough about the direction of the novel to leave my full time job to finish writing. It was a big financial risk for a single parent in the US, but it was the only way and I still had some income from the first novel. A year later, I submitted and sold it. The financial risk, although calculated, was real and is still a problem for me, but well worth it. I'm doing something I love, finally. And I think I can keep doing it. It's a privilege to own my time, even though I work long hours. And I don't take that privilege for granted. I'm grateful every day for this unexpected life.