What Sophomore Book? – The Debutante Ball

This week we’re blogging about our second book efforts. I’m here to weigh in as the Deb Ball Team slacker! Yes, I’m the only one of the five who does not have a second book in at least a completed draft form…

…and I’m okay with that.

I’ve already written a few times here about my struggle to write my follow-up memoir to Caged Eyes. I believe in this second story I have to tell now even more than ever! This book WILL happen, one way or another. It just hasn’t happened yet.

In the post I wrote a few weeks ago following up on our New Years Resolutions, I wrote about how as I’m trail running and living in the mountains this summer, there is more going on:

“Somewhere there’s a corner of my brain where the book is coming together, where I’m finding the words and images to articulate this story. Maybe that’s what it means to be a memoirist; maybe sometimes it’s less about the actual writing and more about the living. If that’s the case? I’m nailing it.”

The other thing is – and I think novelists will relate to this as well – I want my second memoir to be so very different than my first book. I want it to be more reflective and internal, I want it to have a far different tone, etc. Finding that new grove can be tricky. I have a early, early draft (ish) of 60,000 words but I’m not sure any one of those words will stay in the end. What I’m putting down isn’t quite right yet.

There’s still time, lots of time to get this book right.

A random mountain because why not? I’d add a metaphor about how book writing is like mountain climbing but the reality is that one of those things is much harder than the other. Which? I’ll let you guess.

Author: Lynn K Hall

Lynn Hall is a memoirist, activist in the movement to end sexual violence, ultra-runner, and crazy cat lady. Her memoir, CAGED EYES: AN AIR FORCE CADET’S STORY OF RAPE AND RESILIENCE, was published by Beacon Press in February 2017. Her writing has previously appeared in the New York Times, The LA Times, Hippocampus Magazine, The Sexual Assault Report, The Manifest-Station, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and elsewhere. In the summers, Lynn copes with publication anxiety by spending too many days in the Colorado mountains, and in the winters, with pans of brownies. She lives in Boulder with her partner and their 23 cats. Just kidding…she only has five. View all posts by Lynn K Hall

One Reply to “What Sophomore Book?”

I’m looking forward to reading your next memoir , Lynn – and I don’t care when it happens!! – But I’ll be ready to dive in whenever you send it out to the world. xoxoxo (Or even better, put me on your ARC list!)