More Goliath Answers

In my last post, I announced that I just finished my second draft of Goliath, and invited questions in the comments. Here are my answers:

How long does it generally take you to write a first draft?

I started Goliath in early January, so nine months in this case. The rewrites took about five weeks. (I also do two months of touring a year, and usually take a month off after that. Plus there's all the other editorial stages to come. It all adds up to more than a year per book. Yes, I used to write much faster, but I got old.)

I know Extras had a complete rehaul upon rewriting––was there anything in the Leviathan series (any of the books) that has changed majorly from draft to publication?

For those of you who didn't know, about 16,000 words of the first draft of Extras had to be changed from Hiro's to Aya's POV, when I realized that Aya was doing all the cool stuff. That was a pain.

Here's an excerpt of the first version.

No rewrites of that magnitude happened in the Leviathan series, though the endings to both books 1 and 3 were changed a lot. As I said yesterday, Goliath's ending was expanded by several chapters to cover all the stuff I wanted closure on. With Leviathan, I had to do a more structural refit. Here's what happened:

In the first draft, the eggs hatched at the end of Book 1, and Bovril's first word ("Constantinople") was the last word of Leviathan. But Bovril was so cute that it made the end a bit too light-hearted, so the hatching got moved 16 chapters into Book 2, where I used it to interrupt Alek's escape. (This was my editor's idea, and she was totally right.)

How long before the inevitable ARC giveaway, so that we can plan our stalking of your blog accordingly, in hopes of reading the book as soon as possible?

I don't do ARC giveaways here, because I am quite bad at MAILING THINGS. But ARCS will appear at Book Expo America in late May, and will probably start bouncing around on blogs shortly thereafter.

During the forum meet up you mentioned more Croy. Care to explain more?

This question thread is about Goliath! (But there's a hint somewhere below.)

So does this mean that Jaspert will make a reappearance in Goliath?

Not everyone appears again, but we do at least know where they are. Like, all the key people are mentioned in one way or another. But we will also see some old faces. (Vague much?)

So um, I have a probably really annoying question but—when does the uglies movie come out? Or is it still in production?

It is not in production. Believe it or not, it's still in the script phase. (I mean, it was only optioned SIX YEARS ago. Patience!)

Now that you've turned in the final product, what sort of sausage-maker does Goliath get churned through between now and September? What are the steps that take it from "writer submits finished product" to "ravenous fans purchase and devour"?

This answer turned into a whole post, which will appear tomorrow or the next day!

Does Volger know that Deryn has feelings for Alek? I feel as if it was alluded to, but I am not quite sure.

You mean in Behemoth? Well, he did guess she was a girl partly because she got "a bit screechy" when talking about Alek, like worrying about him too much. So I think he knows that she has a crush. (Volger would at least be concerned that she does, given that he's already been through this fall-in-love-with-a-commoner-thing with Alek's father.)

What are you going to do now? I don't mean like writing a new book but you know, what are you going to do while Goliath goes through publishing?

See tomorrow's post for my Goliath-related duties. But personal time-wise, I'm hanging out in Sydney doing the usual: getting into internet slapfights (ahem), watching cricket, designing a card game (a weird hobby of mine), cooking Turkish food, and working on a S3Krit PRojEct that will be announced at Comic Con. (This is what I meant by "I probably won't answer spoilery questions, except in cheating, non-useful ways that only drive you more insane!" Bwah-hah-hah!)

I'll also be going to LeakyCon, because this year their YA thread is being curated by the esteemed and undiagnosable Maureen Johnson!

Is there already a date for the third of my beloved audio books?

Certain nameless online retailers list September 11, 2011. Two days before the print edition? Odd but possibly true. Usually S&S Audio tries to get it out the same day. For Behemoth that was impossible, due to Alan Cumming's movie star schedule, but hopefully this time it will work more easily.

Will the release date also be September 13 in Great Britain?

Not sure. Release dates in the UK tends to be less "hard" (for my books, anyway). That is, they come out over a couple of weeks, drifting onto shelves rather than all slamming down on the same day.

When Dr.Barlow finds out that Alek named his perspicacious loris Bovril she seamed really upset but I'm wondering if that really disturbes her or if she's just not used to beasts having their own names. (The second confuses me because Dr.Barlow did name both of her message parrots in the first book.)

Nice continuity catch. The parrots were experimental, and wound up with names, true. But it's one thing for Dr. Barlow and her lab cronies to name their beasts, quiet another for a common soldier to do so. (You didn't think Dr. Barlow had to follow her own rules, did you?)

So when will you be optioning these stories to Hollywood?

Conversations are being had. Watch this blog.

If the book's done they what happens to it in between the release date and now?

As I said, see my next post.

Do you mind us calling you Scott? my mom thinks we should call you Mr. Westerfeld and I was just wondering!

Scott is just fine, though Scott-la is also acceptable.