People often ask me what
my writing process is—do I outline first (yes, usually), what time of day do I
write (evenings almost every day, and often a morning shift on the days I don’t
work the day job), and how long it takes me to write a novel from start to
finish. That last one is tougher to answer.
In general, it takes me
about three or four weeks to play with the initial idea, do enough research to
get started, and write the outline and character studies, all of which has to
happen before I begin to do the actual writing.
Then it
takes me about four months to write the polished first draft (I start each day’s
writing by editing the words from the day before, so in theory each first draft
had already had one edit by the time it is done). Then it goes off to my agent
Elaine, who sends me her very helpful revision notes, which take me about two
weeks to complete. Then it goes off to my editor, who will eventually send me
her own notes. Somewhere in that process, bits and pieces and sometimes the
whole thing are also read and commented on by my First Readers, who are various
folks who I trust to give me honest but not brutal feedback. [Each book has
different First Readers—some people have worked on almost every book…thank, Mom…and
some only one or two.]
You’ll note those
important two works: in general. If you ask any writer, they will tell you that
no two books are the same. Some are easier to write than others. And every once
in a while, you get one that fights back.
Take it from me—this is
Not a Good Thing.
Dangerously Charming, the
first book in the Riders series, tried to kill me. No, really. This one fought
back. Unlike Wickedly Dangerous, the first Baba Yaga book, it was not fun to
write. Did I mention it tried to kill me?
I thought about not doing
this blog post. After all, it would be kind of nice for y’all to have the
illusion that I sit here with my laptop and my cat and merrily type away while
bluebirds fly overhead, singing happy songs, and then, POOF, the book appears.
Yeah, not so much. Not
even for the books that cooperate. (Although there is a laptop, and often a cat
or two. But no bluebirds. The cat would eat them. And then the feathers would
get into the keyboard, and I’d have to explain that to the tech guys, and well,
nevermind.)
But I also thought that
maybe it would be interesting for you to get a peek into the reality of the
writer’s world, and really, the only way to give you a good look was to be
honest. Which means admitting that not only is writing not always (or ever)
easy, sometimes it is downright tough. The next time you read a book by one of
your favorite authors, maybe you’ll wonder…was this one that fought back? And
appreciate the fact that the book exists even more.
So what happened? A couple
of things. It probably started with my signing a contract with back to back to
back deadlines that were too close together, and getting a little burned out.
It happens. Plus, it was more difficult than I expected to switch from writing
about the Baba Yagas to writing about the Riders. But then the outline wouldn’t
allow me to write it. I got about a third of the way into the story, and couldn’t
get any further. Only had a basic idea of what happened next. Still, the book
had to be started, and I’d written books without outlines before, so I just sat
down and began writing, and hoped that I’d figure it out as I went along.
Nope. I got about 34,000
words in (on a book that would end up being about 90,000 words) and I had a
feeling something just wasn’t right. So I sent it to Elaine, and she made some
suggestions, and I rewrote the first bit. But it still wasn’t right, so I asked
my then-editor, Leis, to take a look, and she called me up and basically
confirmed my worst fears: the story wasn’t working, in part because there were
serious problems with the two main characters, Mikhail Day (the Rider, who my
readers had already met in the three Baba Yaga books) and his love interest,
Jenna.
So I figured out the
problems, and where the story had started to go wrong. Unfortunately, that was
at about the 8,000 word mark. Yes, you can see my problem here. I was going to
have to throw out almost everything I’d written (when I was already running
late on my deadline) and start over practically from scratch. Did I mention
that this book tried to kill me?
Thankfully, I was
actually able to save more than I expected, although much of the old stuff had
to be changed, rewritten, or thrown out completely. Once I’d identified the
problems with the story, I was able to go back to the outline and finish it,
which made writing the rest of the book a lot easier. And then there was my pal
Sierra, who not only acted as First Reader, and my trusty paid researcher, but
helped me brainstorm a lot of the story when I got stuck. So basically, she
saved my butt. (This was a fairy tale story, and that’s kind of her area of
expertise. Thank goodness.) As did my friend Kari, who brainstormed and did one-day turnarounds during that horrible last month. But holy crap, this was a tough one.
Eventually, the story got
finished, two months past its deadline. (I’ve never been late on a deadline
before. There was some serious twitching.) Which, of course, meant I was
already two months behind on the current novel. Let’s hope that one doesn’t fight
back too. The important thing, though, was that in the end, I had a book I was
proud of, and happy to eventually be able to share with you all. As an author,
the end result is a lot more important than the struggle it takes to get there.
You know, as long as most
of the books don’t try to kill you.
So tell me, have you ever
had a creative endeavor that fought back? Inquiring minds want to know.
Posts
