Tess asked Guy Haley:

Undoubtedly you are one of the Black Libraries greatest authors and I have heard it said that you are like a printing press with regard to the sheet volume at which you can produce not just fiction, but quality fiction. How long would you say it takes you to write a draft for a novel on average? Is there any sort of process you tend to go through when writing?

Guy Haley Hello! A printing press eh? I’ve not heard that before! Excellent. The fastest I’ve ever written a book, not including the two weeks research, was six weeks for Valedor. Normally it takes me anywhere between that and twelve weeks, but 12 weeks is really the outside, and that’s more than one draft, it’s the finished product. I write between three and five novels’ worth of material a year, so it must be that (I don’t record how long it takes, generally, so anything I say here is a bit elastic).

I don’t have a process per se. Obviously, there is a process, because I start with nothing and finish with a book, but I don’t have a set process. Further, because of the kind of fiction I write for BL, there is a formula too, I suppose, but I vary both process and formula as much as I can, so it’s not something that is readily quantifiable in an answer like this. But, having interviewed and spoken to a LOT of authors, I can say there is no magic recipe, if that’s what you’re after. We all do it differently. You have have to find your own way of doing things. The one commonality is that I try to to write an average number of words a day over the course of a project. 3500 for me is satisfactory, but nothing to get excited about. I aim for 4000. If I do less, than 3500, I get annoyed. Even if I’m not feeling it, I push on and get words down on the page. In the economy of writing, words down on the page are the currency that really matters.

I hope that answers your question!

flag