Writing one book is not the same as writing another

Today was my 11th morning of writing an hour first thing. When I was writing the thriller novel that's now with my agent, whole chapters would appear at once in my imagination. I would get the kernel of an idea and it would just began to unscroll itself on the screen. Oh, I made decisions and had to sort out the details but a whole chapter would come.

Writing this book is a very different experience. Even more character-driven than the last book, this novel is about a daughter and her mother and her sister. It's about parenting when it isn't very good and what happens to those children, now grown-up, and to that woman now older and ill. Unlike the the last novel, which came out of my imagination backed up by my experience, this novel is coming out of my memories and my own stuck places backed up by my imagination.

Each morning, I write a page or two, each morning I move Frankie a little farther along her trajectory into the plot and into what's coming (and I don't know what's coming). There are also several subplots lurking in the back of my mind waiting for the right moment to come out.

It's very curious, this particular unfolding. And it intrigues me in a whole new way both as a writer and as a recovering daughter.