Patrick Reitz asked Mary Robinette Kowal:

What's the ratio of time that you spend between writing the first draft(s) of a novel (say all the work before you show it to someone else for the first time) and the time that you spend on editing/revising it before it sees publication?

Mary Robinette Kowal I'm odd. I have alpha-readers following along as I work, so I stay about three chapters ahead of where they are. I'm an outliner, so getting feedback helps me make sure that the novel is doing what I want it to do as I write it. This means that I do a sort of back and forth with my revision process as I move through the novel. By the time I hit the end, I have a fairly clear draft.

Usually, I do two more passes after that.

Most of my work is actually before I start writing, during the outlining phase. I'll spend close to a year researching, cogitating on, and planning the novel. I write it in about three months. Then do a quick pass to fix things that I noted as I was working, and hand it to my editor.

I ignore it while she has it, usually for three or four months. Then, depending on the novel, another structure edit. Which is about two weeks. Then line edits, another two weeks.

And then I get copy edits, proofreads, and then it's out of my hands.

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