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Failing to Follow Up The Fault in Our Stars

2016-09-20 · letter vlog · John · 3:20 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay

Continuing Hank's discussion of failure, John explains that no novel has followed The Fault in Our Stars because its public success coincided with private failures: two abandoned books, intense pressure and writing that stopped being a release; he returned to writing for fun and has become okay with not knowing whether he will publish again.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Continuing Hank's failure discussion: no new novel in almost five years since The Fault in Our Stars

  • ★★ John says he really liked Hank's video on Friday and continues their discussion of failure by turning to his new book. (hedged) — 00:00:01 · Hank Green
  • ★★★ John says it has been almost five years since The Fault in Our Stars; nothing new followed because a very public success coincided with a series of very private failures. — 00:00:08 · The Fault in Our Stars

00:00:20 — TFIOS sales; the failing identity-thieves book, storm-drains rewrite and the screenplay

  • ★★ John says The Fault in Our Stars, his fourth novel, sold more hardcovers in its first week than his three previous novels had ever sold combined. — 00:00:20 · The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★★★ John says that meanwhile he was hard at work on a new book about teenage identity thieves, as he always wrote a new book after publishing one, but it wasn't working. — 00:00:37
  • ★★ John says the concept was partly flawed: he always wanted to write a proper thriller but is no good at thriller craft such as action scenes, guns or plot. (playful) — 00:00:43
  • ★★★ John says he also began to feel intense pressure, as if people were watching over his shoulder while he wrote. — 00:00:56
  • ★★ By April 2012 John reworked it as a story of two boys finding something terrible in their hometown's storm drains, writing about 100 pages, none very good. — 00:01:01
  • ★★ John says The Fault in Our Stars kept selling, and in May 2012 he read an amazing screenplay adaptation and realized it might become a movie. — 00:01:14 · The Fault in Our Stars, The Fault in Our Stars (film)

00:01:21 — From person who writes books to person who wrote that one book; the con-artists book abandoned

  • ★★★ John says his job stopped being 'person who writes books', a present-tense title, and became 'person who wrote that one book', a past-tense one. — 00:01:21

    “and became 'person who wrote that one book', which is a past tense job title.”

  • ★★ John recalls his best friend Chris saying it must be weird getting all this money for something he did at Starbucks a couple of years ago; it was weird. — 00:01:31

  • ★★★ John says he was elated and grateful that The Fault in Our Stars reached so many readers, but terrified that he could never follow it up. — 00:01:37 · The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★★★ By the time the movie started shooting in fall 2013, John was failing to write a book about teenage con artists; he spent almost a year on it before giving up. — 00:01:46 · The Fault in Our Stars (film)
  • ★★ John remembers sobbing in a hotel room right after the movie came out, looking at hundreds of pages he realized would never be a book. — 00:01:55 · The Fault in Our Stars (film)

00:02:02 — High-class problems; writing stops being a release; returning to it for fun

  • ★★ John stresses these are high-class problems he is very grateful to have, but wants to be honest that they are problems. — 00:02:02
  • ★★★ John says writing had always been a safe, sane outlet for his obsessiveness and recursive thinking, but it stopped providing that release and he realized he could stop. — 00:02:09
  • ★★ John says writing had become miserable, and as he gave more time to Crash Course and The Art Assignment he realized he has amazing work he is lucky to do. (hedged) — 00:02:19 · Crash Course, The Art Assignment
  • ★★★ John missed writing like someone you used to love; about a year ago (2015) he went back, writing just for fun and because he thought Sarah would like it, which are good reasons to write. — 00:02:27 · Sarah Urist Green

00:02:41 — No guaranteed success arc; getting okay with not knowing; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says this is hard to discuss because such stories usually end in greater success after failure; he is not sure his will, and doesn't know if he'll publish another book. (unsure) — 00:02:41 · also in: My Next Book
  • ★★ John says readers probably won't like a new book as much as The Fault in Our Stars; he hopes to finish the one he is writing and that people like it, but doesn't know. (hedged) — 00:02:56 · The Fault in Our Stars

  • ★★★ John says what changed is that he got okay with not knowing: his once unshakable beliefs about books and writing are now shaken, which is uncomfortable but productive. (hedged) — 00:03:03

    “Now my beliefs aren't just shakable, they're shaken.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Failure · John's novel in progress (2016) · The Fault in Our Stars

Also: People: Chris Waters · Sarah Urist Green

Projects: Crash Course · The Art Assignment

Works: John's abandoned con-artists novel · John's abandoned identity-thieves novel · The Fault in Our Stars (film)

Organizations: Starbucks

Concepts: Intellectual humility

Also centred on Failure: Let's Talk about Failure

Also centred on John's novel in progress (2016): My Body Is a Broken Temple

Replies to

  • continues · Let's Talk about Failure — “I really liked your video on Friday, and I thought maybe today we could continue our discussion of failure”

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