I would guess not for everybody, but that’s the general consensus. My personal experience is it took me longer to get an agent and find a publisher than it did to write my first novel.
Blogfest 2009
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Rick Yancey on “If one of your books got banned from somewhere, how would you feel?”
Honored to be in some pretty fantastic company. Mark Twain. J.K. Rowling. D.H. Lawrence. Vladimir Nabokov.
Rick Yancey on “Is it harder to write the first book as opposed to the second (or third, or fourth) or does it depend on the content of what you are writing?”
Every book presents its own unique set of challenges. It’s been my experience (after ten books and counting) that no book has been easier to write than another. Of course, I tend to jump from genre to genre and never let myself get too comfortable with any particular style. This forces me to grow as a writer, so some aspects do get a little easier over time. I like to think I’ve gotten better with pacing, with understanding the dramatic form, with constructing good dialogue. I’ve also gotten tougher on myself as a writer, not so self-indulgent (I hope). So the actual writing is easier now; it’s the editing myself that gets harder and harder.
Rick Yancey on “Have you ever just wanted to give up?”
Yes. Usually it happens when I pick up a book I’ve already published and found an awkward phrase or a stupid line or something else very embarrassing that now the whole world can see, therefore letting everyone in on the fact that I’m a moron. Other times it happens about 3/4 into a manuscript and I realize that really no worse writer has ever been published in the history of the world and why don’t I spare our precious trees for someone who can really write? Times like those. Most of the time I’m honest enough with myself to recognize that I might as well try to give up breathing. I write. It’s what I do.
Rick Yancey on “What made you start writing?”
RiI’ve wanted to be a full-time writer since I was thirteen or fourteen (I wrote my first book-length manuscript at fifteen or so). I had several excellent teachers and mentors in junior and high school, caring people who picked up on my passion and gave me great encouragement. Writing gave me the same incredible, incomparable joy that reading did: an entrance into another world, a world that was understandable to me and provided the magical escape that art so effortlessly does.
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