John Green’s new book, Turtles All the Way Down, comes out next week, and the writing process behind it was a fascinating personal journey that we can all learn from.
Turtles All the Way Down, according to its synopsis, “begins with a fugitive billionaire and a cash reward. It is about lifelong friendship, the intimacy of an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction, and tuatara. But at its heart is Aza Holmes, a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.”
Related: Here’s the first chapter of John Green’s new novel ‘Turtles All The Way Down’
It will be Green’s fifth book, and he says that, “while it’s definitely a made-up story, it’s also kind of a personal story, because as most of you know, I have a mental illness that at times has taken over my life.”
But it’s not only this connection with his personal life that makes the publication of Turtles All the Way Down, which is definitely going to be a bestseller, a personal victory for the author. Green has been very public about the toll his success had on him and on his writing, and there’s a lot we can learn from his journey from bestseller to writer’s block and back.
The downside of success
The Fault in Our Stars was released in 2012, and exploded in the book market and later in movie theaters all over the world. It was Green’s fourth book (unless you count the ones he wrote in collaboration with other authors), and became his most famous — even surpassing Looking for Alaska, which is still a universal favorite among fans.
But besides being a bestselling author, Green is also actively involved in other projects with his brother Hank Green, from Crash Course to vlogbrothers and the Dear Hank and John podcast. Through the last two, Green has been open about what he felt as his novel became world famous. In Failing to Follow Up The Fault in our Stars, he explained the effect of that success, and the struggle that followed:
“Somewhere in that period my job stopped being “Person Who Writes Books” (which is a present-tense job title) and became “Person Who Wrote That One Book” (which is a past-tense job title). Like, I remember one night my best friend Chris saying to me, “It must be weird getting all this money for something you did at Starbucks a couple years ago. (…) I was elated and grateful that The Fault in Our Stars was reaching so many readers, but at the same time, I was terrified because I felt like I could never follow it up.”
That, coupled with the intensity of the press coverage that followed the making of the movie adaptation, made a deep impact in Green’s life. In a 2014 interview on Rhett and Link’s podcast Ear Biscuits, he explained: “Any kind of dramatic change in your life, even if it’s a really positive change, is stressful… these are some of the best things that can happen to you, but it’s also kind of overwhelming.”
Fighting writer’s block
The publication process is long, and Green was writing something new by the time The Fault in Our Stars hit shelves. While sales steadily rose, he worked on a thriller “about teenage identity thieves” because “that’s what I did after publishing a book: I wrote a new one.”
But it didn’t work out. On the one hand, Green said, it was because he isn’t good at thrillers. But on the other hand, “I’d started to feel this intense pressure, like people were watching over my shoulder as I was writing.”
In April 2012, he re-imagined it as another story “about two boys who find something terrible while exploring storm drains in their little hometown,” and got 100 pages in before discarding it as well. By 2013, The Fault in our Stars was being turned into a movie, and the novel had morphed into one about teenage con artists, which was also scrapped eventually.
“I remember being in a hotel room right after the movie came out, looking at these hundreds of pages as I realized they would never be a book and just sobbing. (…) Writing had always been a safe and sane way for me to pour out my obsessiveness and recursive thinking. But then suddenly it just didn’t provide that release anymore and I realized y’know that I, I could stop.”
It’s a difficult thing for any writer, but certainly for a bestselling author, to admit defeat. But Green did the right thing, and shifted his attention to the million other projects he has a hand in. This break lasted all the way to 2015, when things finally began to change.
“I started writing something just for fun. I kept saying that to Sarah [his wife], “I’m just writing this for fun. I’m just writing this because I think you’ll like it.” But of course those turn out to be pretty good reasons to write. Still though this is all kind of hard to talk about because the usual arc of these narratives is I had some failure but then I plowed through and found greater success than ever. And I’m not at all sure that’s how this story will end. I don’t know if I’ll ever publish another book. And if I do I don’t know whether people are will like it. I know they probably won’t like it as much as they liked The Fault in Our Stars. I hope I finish the book I’m working on, I hope you like it but I don’t know.
I think what changed is I got okay with not knowing. I used to be so certain. I used to have all these unshakable beliefs about books and writing and how to be a writer. Now my beliefs aren’t just shakeable, they’re shaken. That feels uncomfortable but also productive… I think.”
Building something beautiful
As it turns out, the story did end and Green is publishing a new book. But it goes to show how difficult the writing process can be, and how many factors affect whether it succeeds or not. After years of development, Green has written his most personal story yet, exploring the OCD he experiences, the human/bacteria ratio in our bodies he’s discussed on his podcast, and probably touching on many other themes he’s been thinking about during the past 5 years. Knowing the activist and active role model within the internet’s youth he is, it’ll be exciting to read the story that finally captured his heart and made it to becoming a novel.
For readers, knowing the inspiring story of the author’s journey to writing the book definitely makes the novel itself all the more interesting. And for writers, it’s a confirmation that no writing process is perfect — not even for bestselling authors. It comes with bumps and obstacles of all kinds along the way, but in the end, it’s that struggle that makes a story worth telling.
In a vlogbrothers video during his last read through the final manuscript, Green tried to describe the confusing mix of elation and nerves that comes with publishing a new novel, his profound affection for it noticeably present in his voice.
“For the last few years, this book has been mostly mine. And after today it won’t be mine anymore, it’ll belong to the people who read it.”
You can pre-order Turtles All the Way Down here. For signed copies, John Green recommends trying here.
The book will be released next week, October 10, 2017.
Transcripts taken from Nerdfighteria Wiki.