Picture this: five authors — Jade Chang, Angela Flournoy, Aja Gabel, Xuan Juliana Wang and Jean Chen Ho — regularly schlepping to a cozy Italian-American restaurant on Hillhurst Avenue in Los Felix’s, laptops in tow, meatballs marinara, fried potatoes with garlic and lemon, Italian tuna butter-lettuce salad. They’re there ostensibly to write novels. Actually they’re there for the company. For the community. For that rare thing: other people who are also trying to write the “second book” and know what a hilariously painful slog it is. Because: oh yes, writing a novel is lonely. But it doesn’t have to be that lonely if you pick your booth wisely.
1. The myth of solitary genius
We all love the image: writer in a garret, quill in hand, storm raging outside, the muse whispers. But here’s the truth: that trope is inefficient, oversold, and exhausting. The group at Little Dom’s essentially flipped the narrative. As Flournoy put it:
“It’s very hard to write a second book. So it helped to feel like you’re not alone.”
AOL+1
Translation: the first book? Maybe you had novelty, adrenaline, “look-at-me” energy. The second? Reality sets in: rewrite, inertia, doubt, domestic responsibilities, pandemic interruptions, existential dread. The five friends discovered that when you have others in the same muck, doing the same thing, you pick up more pages, quicker scenes, fewer distractions.
Chang: “I knew what I wanted to write … but I hadn’t really found the voice yet for this novel.” AOL+1
Gabel: “I couldn’t really write anything… Sometimes it was just having that set time, forcing yourself to write anything down.” AOL
In other words: the real enemy of the second book is not bad ideas, it’s not even the blank page. It’s time, discipline, being seen doing it, having to show up. Having a booth at Little Dom’s every week becomes your writer’s pledge: I will show up. I will do the chunk. I will not ghost on my friends. Because if I don’t, they’re there.
2. The booth as ritual, the timer as whip
They used the classic Pomodoro method — 25 minutes work, 5 break. But of course, grown-writers at fancy restaurant upgraded it: 40 minutes work, then break. They call it “poms”. Chang: “The pomodoros helped.” Flournoy: “Coming with you guys at Little Dom’s… I realized I would get more done in a shorter amount of time.” AOL+1
Here’s what’s brilliant: by putting a timer, by having others around you, you raise the stakes. If you’re alone in your home office, it’s easy to procrastinate: five more minutes, scroll Instagram, check email, refill coffee, rearrange the stack of blank index cards. But in the booth, timer ticking, cappuccino steaming, your friend has already typed 300 words and looks up. You feel the silent expectation. Rather than the romantic myth of the tortured lone genius, this is lean-in work: focused spurts of productivity + communal presence.
Chang joked: “Is our closest equivalent like being a run club? … the last thing I would ever do is join a run club.” AOL
Running may be out. But writing in a group? Suddenly social-adjacent.
So yes: Timer = accountability. Booth = stage. Meatball = reward. The cues merge: the clock screams “go”, your friends stare productively, you write. Then: break. Eat. Chat. Reset. Repeat.
3. The social alchemy of writing with friends
Now, this is where the vibe gets interesting. Because the authors weren’t meeting to talk about their books — not in that literal sense. They already knew how to write a book. They each had at least one published work. The meeting wasn’t workshop. It was witnessing. As Jean Chen Ho reflects:
“We met up so much outside of doing pomodoros too … There’s so much we know about each other … being a writer is just a small part of the whole picture, to me, of our very rich and very nourishing friendship.” AOL
So when you’re writing a book (especially the second book), you also bring your whole messy self: the part-time parenting, the job, the doubt, the screenwriting detour, the pitch meetings, the rejections, the family crises, the pandemic-era blur. When you have friends who see all that — not just the “hey I wrote 5000 words today” front — you free up the invention. You free up the permission. You free up the laughter. Because you know: when you finish chapter three, someone’s going to ask: “How are the kids?” Or “Do you want more coffee?” Or “Let’s talk about your sleeve tattoo idea.” You’re not simply a writer trying to grind words. You’re a human being grinding words with others.
Xuan Juliana Wang: “After the pandemic … it was like I forgot who I was … then it took the poms… to remember who I was again, a writer.” AOL
That is the kind of honesty you don’t get in a solo spreadsheet-desk arrangement at 2 a.m.
The friendships act like anchors and launchpads at once. Anchor: you show up, you write, you have others to see you. Launchpad: you twitch in the booth, idea sparks, someone says something offhand about garlic-fried potatoes, and bam—the next scene blossoms. The social friction generates creative heat.
4. The “second book” hustle
Let’s talk truth: your first book might have been fueled by hope, novelty, that “I’m a Writer!” rush. But the second? It’s usually the one that humbles you. It forces you to ask: do I still have the fire? What changed in me, in the market, in the world? For Flournoy:
“When I really started writing with you all … I was like, ‘God, you need to fix this.’” AOL
For Chang: “I knew how I wanted to write it, but I hadn’t really found the voice yet.” AOL
And yes: the pandemic. Parenting. Interruptions. That’s the reality. You don’t just hunker down and crank words like you did when you were less busy. So the structure of the meetings at Little Dom’s becomes strategic: you book the booth, you commit publicly, you perform the act of writing by writing. The timer locks you in; the peers lock you in; the booth commits you.
“When I’m alone, I think I would just be like, ‘What’s my feeling today?’ And then it would take eight hours, and I’d get the same scene.” Chang again. AOL
But in “Pom Mode”: scene targeted, timer set, friends present → progress. This says: writing is not only inspiration, but logistics, community, ritual. The cozy booth isn’t decadent—it’s effective.
5. Restaurant as workspace: weird, but brilliant
I’d also like to salute the setting: Little Dom’s. Doesn’t exactly scream “creative co-working hub.” Italian-American eatery. Meatballs. Fried potatoes. Butter-lettuce tuna salad. But that’s the point. It’s not a cold cubicle or a trendy coworking lounge. It’s a restaurant where you show up, laptop open, work in sequences, eat, chat, reset. They even joked: we weren’t supposed to be opening laptops at the restaurant. But we did. Flournoy:
“… if you need me to move, tell me to get the f— out of here.” AOL
There’s something subversive about setting a timer in a booth. Timer dings: you take a break → you eat an amazing meatball. You chat with your friends. You’re no longer in a sterile office. You’re in life. That weird, delicious intersection of writing + brunch + conversation + garlic-fried potatoes.
And the restaurant staff? They’re part of the ecosystem. As Jean mentions: “Just talking to the people who work there … always being, like, if you need me to move, tell me to get the — out of here. Not being entitled to the space.” AOL
Meaning: there’s humility, gratefulness. There’s an acknowledgment: this is not a private studio; it’s a public place. But because they come weekly, consistently, they turn the corner booth into a clubhouse. That’s strategy.
6. Friendship as artistic infrastructure
Often we think: art is solitary. But here’s a more refined wisdom: art needs infrastructure. Not just in the world of publishing and PR, but in your daily regime: the friends, the booth, the timer, the food, the check-in. The “infrastructure” enables the daily grind of creation. The friends become kind of like the scaffolding around the building under construction. They don’t build the bricks, but they hold the rails.
Flournoy:
“This was a community of friends that, even if I hadn’t finished my second book, I would still be really grateful for.” AOL
That statement is gold. Because it acknowledges: success is ambiguous. Finish the book? Maybe. Publish? Maybe. But the community, the daily show-up, the bearing witness — that’s already victory.
Chang:
“It’s so much fun! What a weird surprise and treat … When I published the first book, I only knew one other person who had ever written a book.” AOL
That sense-of-not-being-alone matters wildly. If you feel like you’re the only one in the room doing this thing, you might (validly) freak out. But when you’re in the booth with four people doing it too, you realize the path is less solitary. And you get to make jokes about the absurdity of writerly life: the timer, the revisions, the self-doubt, the espresso-induced hyperfocus.
7. What you can steal for your own creative life
Okay, enough sappy inspiration. Let’s retro-engineer this. How can you adapt their model? (Yes—even if you’re not in Los Angeles, not writing a novel, perhaps just blogging or doing a side-project.)
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Choose a consistent public/semi-public workspace: Doesn’t have to be a restaurant, but a place where you commit regularly, open laptop, show up. The “third space” matters.
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Set fixed work-chunks + breaks: Whether 40 minutes + break-chat, or 30 + snack, or whatever. Timer is your friend.
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Bring peers or co-committers: It helps if others are there doing their thing. Doesn’t have to be exactly your project. The co-working energy spills.
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Treat the breaks as real connection time: The authors didn’t talk only plot. They talked life. They bonded. That loosened the pressure.
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Accept that the first book/first project mode is different: The novelty is gone. Now you need discipline, habits, ritual. So treat your creative life as both craft and infrastructure.
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Use the venue’s cues as parts of your ritual: The meatballs + wine + garlic potatoes become part of “writing time” as much as the laptop. It “flags” to your brain: we’re in writing mode.
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Acknowledge community is as much output as the words: Writing alone? Sure. But community-enabled writing feels better—and often it is more productive because you optimize time, motivation, accountability.
8. The snarky edge: let’s call out the delusions
Now let’s be frank and snarky (because you asked). Many of us buy the writer romantic myth: midnight oil, tortured soul, existential isolation, the muse visiting at 3 a.m. That’s sexy. Also, inefficient, lonely, and exhausting. Let’s call it what it is: if you’re writing the second book while also keeping a day job, managing family, living through a pandemic, you don’t have the luxury of suffering your way to brilliance. You don’t have time to wait for the muse to “feel” like working.
The five friends at Little Dom’s embraced the productive model instead of the martyr model. They said: we’ll show up. We’ll work. We’ll use breaks for joy. And we’ll leave the solo pity party for another time. Because, guess what? The page doesn’t care whether you feel lonely or inspired. It just cares whether you click keys.
Also: restaurants make better offices than you think. You might prefer “serious writer cave”. But sometimes the gentle hum of other people, the possibility of meatballs, the social guard rails—all that make writing easier. Ironic? Sure. But life’s too short to pretend suffering equals art.
And let’s be real: the marketing of books is insane. You publish your first one, everyone claps, you think the second will ride the wave. No. The second book is a beast of its own. The “but you already did it once” narrative is more pressure than power. So having a booth of friends who know your bone-weary writing nights, your false starts, your “delete whole draft” panic—that reduces the roar of your internal critic.
9. So what does “feeling like you’re not alone” really feel like?
Imagine this: it’s 10 a.m., you’re nestled in your booth at Little Dom’s. Your laptop open. Timer set for 40 minutes. You’ve already ordered espresso. Across from you, your friend Chang is typing the scene where the wellness guru protagonist accidentally livestreams from a sweat lodge. On your other side, Gabel is rewriting the opening lines of her novel, tossing five pages of notes. The smell of garlic-fried potatoes drifts past. You glance at the timer: ding ! Break time.
You lean back, pick at your butter-lettuce tuna salad, talk about the precarious state of bookmark algorithms, or the screenwriting meeting you blew last week, or how the toddler wouldn’t nap yesterday and your brain still has goo residue. You laugh. You groan. You share a mini-tragedy about rejections. Then you reset the timer. You dive back in. And you’re not alone. You’re among people whose messy lives are paralleled, whose creative ambition is aligned. That under-the-skin “writer insecurity” doesn’t vanish, but it shrinks.
Chang:
“The sheer pleasure of making up stories about people while sitting there with other people who are so good at making up stories is just so fun.” AOL
That’s not self-help fluff. That’s craft: you draw energy from the company you keep. If you try to keep company only with yourself and your inner doubt, you’ll spin. If you kick yourself out into the booth with people who are also kicking themselves into their chairs, you build momentum.
10. Final thoughts: your booth awaits
If you’re blogging, writing novels, tinkering with a side-project, or even just trying to finish the next article and you’ve felt stuck, I leave you with a challenge: find your Little Dom’s booth. It might be a physical café, a park bench, a friend’s living room, a coworking lounge. But commit. Bring timer, bring friends (or at least commit to being seen by someone else), bring snack or coffee as your writing bribe. Show up. Write. Eat. Chat. Reset. Repeat.
Because here’s the real takeaway from Jean Chen Ho’s piece: the writing life may present itself as solitary and star-soaked (everybody sees the book cover, not the page-zero draft), but the actual life of second-book writing? It’s about sitting in a restaurant booth, opening your laptop, setting your timer, being with people who are doing the same.
It helped to feel like you’re not alone. And if that means the ideal writer’s studio is a booth at an Italian-American restaurant, then invite your laptop, order the meatballs, set the timer, and let’s get to work.