How Long

Say, here's a topic for discussion - what's your rate of production? Not just wordcount, but the whole process. How long does it take for you to get from typing 'Chapter 1' to hitting the send button on the Smashwords/Amazon/whatever page? And what stages take the shortest and longest with you? -- Dave

This is a little like asking how long is a piece of string.  (I swear, I could answer every question put to me with "it depends".)

The main "depends" in writing is what else I'm doing.  I have a full-time job.  I like to play computer games.  Very occasionally gardens, and movies and so forth interfere (Cowboys and Aliens isn't bad, but isn't brilliant either - though there is one thing, one tiny nuanced thing, which was remarkably effective).  It also depends on how determined I am to get things done - when I'm writing at home, if I'm serious I'll turn the TV off and listen to music because it's less distracting.

The quickest I ever wrote a first draft was in about three months.  [Or, I guess you could count the Touchstone trilogy, which I wrote in a single year - 350,000 words.  The editing of that took almost as long again.]  I do a whole bunch of end to end editing runs after I'm finished, but first draft is almost always the longest part, especially since I edit as I go along.  I also try to put the book away after the first draft is done and completely forget it for a few months, because you need the distance to look at it with any measure of perspective.

When I'm writing, or thinking about some cool thing to write, I will get up and pace back and forth - very silly.

I don't expect to have The Pyramids of London finished in first draft until late next year (and that only if I exercise some level of discipline with it) because I have so many other things I'm editing.  I've written about 2000 words this weekend and am pressing on for a bit because I really want to write the scene with the hand.  [When the book is done and you're reading it, you will remember me mentioning the scene with the hand.  And then you will say, OMG, the scene with the hand!  My version of vampires is amusing me immensely - and Egyptian mythology seems just made for vampiric lore.]  The speed with which I write depends on what's being written.  Action is fairly easy and quick for me (and hopefully there'll be a lot of action in TPoL!), while what I consider "transitive passages" - the less fun stuff involving polite conversation - can take much longer because I sit there figuring out how to say it just so.

All the formatting and such for publication doesn't take more than a few days.