4th book syndrome

[James Twining]

Fellow thriller writer (doing annoyingly well) Tom Cain has posted about the trauma of writing 'The Second Novel', especially when burdened by weight of expectation following the success of the first. He drew the comparison with rock groups, who pack their first album full of the material they have spent years developing in a friend's garage, and then find themselves short of inspiration (and time as they are now on the road) to complete the second.

This got me thinking, because although I have had Dodgy Title Syndrome and Cover Selection Syndrome (all well documented authorial afflictions), Second Novel Syndrome sort of passed me by - The Black Sun had taken shape well before I'd finished The Double Eagle. In fact I think I'd finished the first draft while I was still copy editing the first book. And the third novel, The Gilded Seal, was almost fully formed by the time I finally put pen to paper. Perhaps, I thought, I had some genetic immunity to the diseases regularly contracted by other writers. Maybe I was special.

How wrong I was. A few days ago I received a message from longstanding Tom Kirk fan and email correspondent Jason Watson:

"I know its very early (well maybe not that much) but have you had any thoughts on book 4?"

An innocent enough question, you may think. And not unreasonable given looming mid 2008 deadline, as he helpfully noted. But a question, nonetheless, that allowed me to complete a process of self-diagnosis that I had rather been shying away from. Yes, I admit it - I am suffering a severe bout of Fourth Novel Syndrome.

It's so embarrassing. I barely dare go out, knowing that everyone will be whispering "Look, do you see him? That's the writer I was telling you about. The one who doesn't really know what his next book will be." It's so unexpected too, considering that when I first went in to meet Bruce (my editor) I outlined five or six Tom Kirk plot ideas which have either been used by me, copied by other writers or simply don't work.

Of course it's not that bad - I'm a writer for God's sake, so allow me some creative licence to create a drama out of a crisis!! I do, believe it or not, have some vague elements that are swimming around in my head - Caravaggio, Rome, the Mafia, grave robbing, dysfunctional families, matricide, Geneva's airport warehouses, yachts, the Medici ... But I haven't quite been able to pull them together yet. But that's fine - I think people produce their best stuff when the pressure is on. In fact I'm quite excited.

And in any case, rather than focus on the depressing image of failed rock groups, I have turned to the movie business as a source of inspiration. Martin Scorsese for instance, who had a run that included Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York and The Departed, proves that you can actually come up with the goods again and again. Or Quentin Tarantino who directed Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill B... Okay, so that's where the analogy falls down, but you know what I mean.

So while Tom Cain scours the world for another famous celebrity that he can kill off in an accident (your words, not mine Tom!), I'm off to knock all these ideas in my head into a story. Or write that brilliant first album.

***

As an aside, the fall-out from my account of goings on at the Harrogate crime festival continues ... My publishers (in the shapely form of my publicist Kelly) have received anonymous voice mails demanding that I remove the offending post. Meanwhile I have received messages from phantom email addresses questioning my version of events and suggesting I correct them. But you will be pleased to know that having taken soundings from some of my fellow bloggers as well as people who were actually there, I have decided not to compromise by journalistic integrity by censoring myself. It happened just the way I described it and if you don't like it, then tough. (This is how Bob Woodward must have felt when he blew the lid on Watergate.)