How I Wrote a Novel in 17 Days

I typed the most lovely words in the English language earlier tonight: THE END.

The novel in question: The Ragnarok Alternative, the fourth book of the New Olympus Saga that started with Armageddon Girl. It's going to be shorter than the previous novels - the first draft came in at under 70K words; by the time I'm done with revisions and additions, it'll clock in at 80-90K words, versus 120K for the three earlier novels. This is because, based on readers' feedback, I focused on the main characters and tossed most subplots by the wayside.

Regardless of the smaller size, 17 days for a novel is a record for me, and one that may have some important effects on my life. Instead of struggling to produce three novels a year, I might be able to write five or six instead (allowing time for editing, revisions and so on). This means a chance to try different genres while still supporting my previous works, without risking reducing my income.

So, how did i manage to do it? Among other things, I followed the advice in Rachel Aaron's book:
http://www.amazon.com/2k-10k-Writing-...
I won't spoil the book here: it's short and to the point and definitely worth the $0.99. I didn't make it to 10K words a day (except for one 14K day) but my daily production did improve dramatically.

The most important factors:

I started writing with a plan in mind, after visualizing the scene I was about to work on. That kept me focused.

If a particular scene wasn't enjoyable to write, I discarded it (that's straight from Ms. Aaron's book). If it's not fun to write, it's not going to be fun to read. Figure out a way around the scene and move on.

Those two things alone were a huge help. I've usually been a burst writer, going from 3-5K words for a day or two, to less than a thousand for two or three days, and so on. The low productivity days outnumbered the others by a factor of three or more. This time I did the bulk of the work in ten days, averaging over four thousand words a day, day in and day out. The new system seems to be sustainable, although I won't find out until I write the next novel.

So those are my words of wisdom, after finishing my sixth novel (Issac Asimov has nothing to worry about). Take them for what they're worth, considering the source.