Author Timothy Lane grew up near Astoria’s Tapiola Park. In the late 1990s, he attended Capt. Robert Gray Elementary School, just up the street from his childhood home on Glasgow Street. In second grade, he wrote his very first story — and surreptitiously “published” it by placing it in the school library.

“I thought, well, I’ve done it,” he said.

Decades later, in 2014, Lane would go on to publish his first novel, “Rules for Becoming a Legend.” Now, his second novel, titled “The Neighbors We Want,” published by Crooked Lane and distributed by Penguin Random House — is set to release this fall.

“Rules for Becoming a Legend” tells the fictional story of Jimmy, a talented but self-sabotaging young man trying to escape his family’s seemingly cursed lineage. The beach, ocean, rain and fog provide a backdrop for life in a rural coastal town called “Columbia City” — an homage to Astoria.

The novel features everything from cautionary tales that born-and-raised Astorians are likely to hear growing up — like a man who went clamming, got stuck in the sand and drowned — to real events that Lane experienced as a student, like the flooding of classrooms one year at Astoria High School.

Largely a departure from “Rules,” Lane’s forthcoming novel, “The Neighbors We Want,” is set in the Northwest, but its scope is much narrower than his previous book. The story is concentrated on the thoughts of a stay-at-home dad, who sees something strange happen across the street while he is trying to get his baby to sleep.

Lane describes it as a domestic psychological thriller. “I started writing and it all poured out,” he said.

Lane, who is a stay-at-home-dad himself, lives in Portland with his wife and two sons. A home studio in his garage is where he does most of his writing. “There is definitely something about the short commute across the backyard that gets me into a writing frame of mind; it has a door which is simple and important. I can close it and close out the world for a bit,” he said.

Like many writers, his path to success has not been linear. “I’ve been rejected more times than I care to admit. There are so many times where I felt as though I wanted to give up,” he said. “It’s humbling and sometimes an eroding feeling. It’s hard to keep that light of creative worth going. But if you can enjoy the process instead of the proceeds, then you win.”

To keep the light of creative inspiration burning, Lane often returns to what he sees as the foundation of good writing — reading. He sees himself at times and other writers becoming obsessed with low word count days, seen as failures. He sees reading as the key “to write anything of worth.” To stay inspired, he picks up a book.

And he is. Lane is already planning out his third book, another homage to a coastal town. “I’m working on something set in the fictional town of Seaview, which is an amalgamation of Astoria and Tillamook, where my grandparents lived,” he said. (That’s not to be confused with Seaview, Washington.)

Coastal life is the foundation of Lane’s evolution as a writer. “Astoria is really the perfect place to grow up if you want to be in the arts,” he said.

Looking back, he sees Astoria as a validating place for his ideas — something he said is hard to come by in the larger world outside a small coastal town. “To some extent, Astoria informs everything I do,” he said.