I Finished Writing My Second Novel
—I Finished Writing My Second Novel—
Today. And it feels good. Writing a book takes a lot of work. And patience. And consistency. You have to show up. You have to do the work. But it pays off in the end. HE WAS ALWAYS A BLOODY MØRTENSEN is the working title. It’s a suspense horror novel and it was fun to write. At 94,000 words it took me 524 days to finish. I’m hopeful it will get me my first book deal.
HWAABM is a personal piece. It tackles some tough questions in the cultural identity space, in fatherhood, in anxiety and paranoia. It also explores some of my Danish cultural heritage and how much we should embrace (or abandon) our ancestral past. I got to travel with the Beautiful One to Denmark in the fall. It was a deeply inspiring trip (for the book and for me more broadly), and a truly beautiful experience—on a primal level, I’d argue. I felt like I was amongst my kin. And I was—many of my blood relatives live there. But also on an almost transcendental level: I was around the people who share with me a little slice of our ancestral roots as Danish human beings. Most of the book is set in North America, but I was able to reference and draw inspiration from places I was able to visit. I think the book is better because of that.
My writing process was a little different this second time around. Instead of writing an entire first draft, then working through a line edit with Editor Amy, I decided to go chapter by chapter in pursuit of a sort of “live” edit. This proved to be a great success. I felt more confident about my work and I was able to polish chapters as I wrote them. I also saved time and money. Amy and I have met pretty much every week since May 2024. Most weeks we’d get through an entire chapter; the cumbersome chapters took up to a month at most. The book has 42 chapters plus an epilogue—so I think the math above adds up. I did my own complete read-through and line edit, which took about a month, and, compared to NIGHTLIGHTER, there wasn’t a ton that I had to change (very encouraging). I’m also holding edits a bit more loosely, as agents/publishers usually want to send the manuscript through another round of edits upon signing.
This whole book-writing experience has been pretty fun. I like how it allows me to be myself. There aren’t any rules*; you get to create whatever you want, however you want. It’s complete and total creative freedom. That’s pretty rad, don’t you think?
I hope HE WAS ALWAYS A BLOODY MØRTENSEN will get my foot in the door. I’d love for you to get your hands on a copy. If not, that’s okay.
I’ll keep writing anyway.
That’s all for now.
-Taylor
*There are, in fact, many rules. But only if you want to write a compelling, readable, cohesive story. I’m okay if the post-modernists take issue with this.
TJH -- 06.23.2025