Adding Up The Hours: How Long Does It Take To Write A Book?

“Lily, how long does it take you to write a book?”

It’s a question I get asked all the time. Possibly, the only question I get asked more often at market stalls or fairs where I promote my books is: ‘are you the author?’ ‘Did you write these?’ and ‘Does the bride really die in this?’ *holding up a copy of Who Killed The Bride?*

Yes, I’m the author. Yes, I wrote these. (Through blood, sweat, tears, and an ocean of self-doubt I wrote these.) No, the bride doesn’t die.

So how long does it take me to write a book? Well, I’ve just finished my new release for February 2018, Book 1 in the Chalk Hill Series, called Water Under The Bridge, so it’s a great time to break it down for you (and for me) while it’s all fresh in my mind.

I got the idea for Water Under The Bridge during the Rio Olympics in 2016. (Blame the very gorgeous dripping puffing panting swimmers!)

Pre-planning, plotting, dreaming & opening chapters

September/October 2016: 40 hours

I started writing Water Under The Bridge for real during National November Writing Month NaNoWriMo in 2016. The idea of NANO is to race through a first draft without editing, the sole purpose being to get a bazillion words on the page.

I wrote about 30,000 words in November 2016, possibly just over… but then I hit the run-up to Christmas and my writing stopped until the new year. When I started writing again in February (when school went back in 2017), I discovered I absolutely hated just about every word I wrote, and I deleted two-thirds of the story and started again. For this reason I decided NANO is not for me and I won’t try that strategy again.

So, in 2017 I changed my work/life balance to enable more time for writing. For most of 2017, outside of school holidays, I’ve spent 3 days a week writing. From the first week in February 2017 (when school went back), to the school holidays at the end of First Term, I estimate I spent 15 hours a week on Water Under The Bridge.

[image error]First draft

NaNoWriMo November 2016 = 30 hours

11 weeks @ 15 hours a week = 165 hours

April 2017: The End! Hooray, break out the champagne… but wait, it’s only The End of the first draft.

First edit

I’m naturally an ‘edit as I go’ type of writer so I like to think I end up with reasonably clean drafts, but even so – they always need another read-thru.

2 weeks @ 15 hours a week = 30 hours

Now I send the story to my Beta reading team and after they come back to me, it’s when the official second draft starts.

Second draft

May/June 2017: Incorporating Beta Reader feedback.

2 weeks @ 15 hours a week = 30 hours

Wahoo, now it’s like, REALLY The End! I submitted the book to Harlequin MIRA editors and my agent Haylee Nash, and about two months later, July 2017, I discovered they liked it a whole heaping lot. Harlequin (now Harper Collins) offer me a 3-book Contract to write the Chalk Hill series.

Cue Champagne!!

But now we wait… the publication date is a long way away (September 2018), and I start writing Chalk Hill Book 2, The Cafe By The Bridge. I have heaps of time for checking covers and writing blurbs and doing edits on Book 1… heaps of time. Not.

Big news! I learn there will be an earlier publication slot for Water Under The Bridge. The publisher is pulling it forward, months and months forward, to March 2018! That means in October 2017, Water Under The Bridge comes back to me after the wise eyes of Harlequin editors Julie Wicks and Laurie Ormond have read it, dissected it, and found all my very dodgy commas and a whole lot of other things they questioned, queried, and asked me to expand upon… phew, this part of things was really tough!

October/November 2017: Structural & Copy Edits

1st round: 2 weeks = 30 hours

My edits go back to Harlequin, all of us using Track Changes in a Word document with arrows going everywhere and lots of queries about the use of toward or towards and which is more English/less American