Is the first book always the hardest?

I find that my novels are like Tolstoy's unhappy families: each is difficult in its own way. Unlike his happy families, however, each of my novels is also fun in its own way.

The first novel was easy.

Then I learned how to write and the second one took a lot longer.

I wrote a few terrible "finished" novels back in college, which went easily. Then I wrote a lot of fanfic novellas, which varied wildly in how easy they were to write and finish. (One is still sitting around with a chapter that basically says "X happens here, will write it later.") Then I wrote a proper novel over the summer, and it was a wild ride, but went pretty fast. Then I wrote a sequel, which was a hideous slog and took much longer and I discarded at the end as being Just Not Good. The one I'm writing now is going really well, but I'm only two chapters in...

(And I'm not counting any of the unfinished and discarded works, which vary from 2k to 75k on where I stopped and decided they weren't going to work.)

Novels vary. Some spring off the pen like the mythological muses are sitting there doing the writing for you. Some are painful, hideous grinds where every word has to be bled onto the paper. You learn more techniques as you go along, and that both makes things easier (you know how to do it!) and harder (now you know what you did wrong before, and what you should be doing better!). Just the way it goes.

And the funny thing is, how easy the book is to write doesn't correlate to how good the book is. Go figure.

Whatever I am working on, everything else always seems as if it was easier but I know in reality I know it wasn't. It was just different.

I think writing is like anything else in life, if you take a break from it, it takes a while to get back into the zone.

Yes, if you mean realising it is crap. Finally you console yourself that 'it was a learning experience'.

And that's the key. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it can't be fun.

writing my first book, 168K YA paranormal romance, was a piece of cake. i wrote the entire thing in 6 months. Now ask me if it was any good.

Well, I think the story is great, but the writing...

I only wish I had joined AW when I had begun writing that novel. Now I have a trunked novel that needs a complete re-write which will probably take me a year to do with all the cutting and fixing that it needs. My second novel that is my current wip is proving to be much more difficult because I know SOOOOO much more than I did the first time around. I'm more deliberate in my writing now. More careful of word choice, more knowledgeable about grammar, punctuation and the need to limit myself in adverb usage. I'm constantly learning and applying and now I feel that I not only have a great story, but one that is well written.

Not in my opinion, because you don't know all the things you're doing wrong, but the second and third books are a bitch to write...lol.

Each of my novels have given me trouble in some way, but they've been a joy to write. The pride after its completed can hardly be explained (I think you all know what I'm talking about). But in terms of publishing, the first is always the hardest to submit, because you don't know what to expect.