The Writing Process

People often ask me what it's like to be a writer. There are so many ways I can answer that, but one of the aspects of being a writer that I don't often touch on is how busy and hectic it can be. There is a lot more that goes into it than most people realize. A typical book you create a proposal for (synopsis plus a few sample chapters). Once it's sold you write the entire first draft of the manuscript. Then your editor sends it back with revision requests. If you're lucky and your editor has the same style asthetic as you do and you wove a tightly plotted story to begin with this can take a couple of days. If things went wrong somewhere along the line (sometimes through no fault of your own) this can take up to two months. Then after you turn in revisions a while later you get it back with copyedits. This is where they flag all your spelling and grammar mistakes, continuity errors, capitalization questions, etc. If you've made use of quotes in your manuscript this is where you'll have to prove that they're accurate and give citation information. A week or two later when you finish doing all that you send the manuscript back in. Then you get to go over page proofs. This is when the publisher sends you copies of the typeset pages exactly as they'll be in book form. You have to read through and make sure that everything is 100% correct. This usually takes less than a week, but if things go wrong can take longer. (Worst experience I ever had here – one whole chapter was missing, headers on half the chapters were messed up, and one half chapter was duplicated somewhere else in the book!! It was a nightmare. And I only had 48 hours to point out all the errors on that one.) Then, when the book is about ready to come out you are expected to do a lot of marketing. This includes spending time on forums, answering interviews, going to book signings and other events, and often other things like annotating a chapter (like commentary on a DVD).

So to recap, it goes like this:

Proposal

First Draft

Revisions

Copyedits

Page Proofs

Promotion and Publication

Now, I've been accused of being insane by a lot of people, including my coauthor and my agents. Let me give you a great illustration of why. Many of my readers know that I've been working on 5 different series at the same time. Let me show you what that means for the six week period March 1st – April 12th, 2011.

Proposal – working on one of them

First Draft - turned in first draft of my supernatural thriller and started work on Kiss of Death

Revisions – had to do the revisions for Wolf Springs Chronicles: Unleashed

Copyedits – been informed I'll be seeing copyedits for Kiss of Night which need to be done in the next week and a half

Page proofs - working on them for Damned (Crusade #2)

Promotion and Publication - Lie Down in Green Pastures (Psalm 23 Mysteries #3) came out. As a bonus, so did the anthology Chicks in Capes which I have a short story called Glamour in. And yes, I have to do interviews for that too. I also ran a bunch of book give away contests and then had to mail books out to the winners. I spent two entire days on this.

And in this same six week period I have to sleep, eat, run errands (doctor appointments, vet appointment, get the tire replaced on the car, pay bills, buy groceries, etc.), play with the cat so he doesn't freak out and start shredding my papers because he's bored, go out and do activities with my husband so he remembers what I look like, do research for upcoming books, and find and collate all my receipts for taxes. In short, have a life.

So, I ask you? Am I crazy?!?! Hmmm…I might have answered that for myself.