The Big Question

When I tell people I wrote a novel, I almost always get The Question. And I understand because when I meet writers I often ask it myself.

How long did it take for you to write your book?

For me, it’s not an easy question because I don’t have an easy answer. I don’t remember when I started, only when I finished. It was quite a while ago, however.

I knew a science fiction writer years ago who told me when a deadline approached for a book, he’d write only about two pages a day because he wrote first and final draft at the same time. I met a writer at a book fair two weekends ago who did roughly the same thing.

I, for one, can’t do that. I have to get it all out first, grammatical and spelling mistakes and all. My book had such problems with continuity you’d be surprised. And I’d constantly change a character’s name in the middle of the book. One minor character that is only in the book for about seven pages had two different names before I settled on a third. She went from Connie to Carmen to Cora. And she was only a minor character.

I think I remember seeing where Stephen King says he writes a first draft of a novel in about three month. I met another novelist at the book fair who says she does a novel in six months. John Grisham does at least one novel a year. So he must finish writing in well under six months.

When I am very productive, I shoot for 1,500 to 1,800 words a day. When I start my next novel book, which is a murder mystery, that rate of productivity will be my target. At that rate, I will finish the first draft in less than five months.

Writing “Fighting Chaos” took years. I have lots of excuses why it wasn’t getting done and they were good and valid. But they were still excuses. Last summer I was suddenly struck with an obsession with word and page counts. The more I saw them going up, the more I wrote. I was writing faster than I could daydream the next scene. I would sometimes have to stop for a day or two just to catch my breathe.

By Labor Day weekend, I had roughly 130 pages. Three weekends later, I finished the first draft with a total of 260 pages. I was amazed. I wrote half the book in three weeks.

Although I haven’t worked out the story yet, I know what my next novel is about. I know who is going to commit murder and why. I know the hero and how he is going to discover who did it. I even know exactly how it begins and how it ends.

I doubt that I will write as fast as I wrote the second half of my first book. I figure if I can get the book done by the May 1, I will have done a good job. That way, I can really enjoy the Indianapolis 500. (But that’s a whole another story.)

I’m posting this blog early, just after midnight local time, because I have a busy day Tuesday on my regular job.

It’s been a hard evening for reasons I will go into another day. But as my mentor says, “Be British. Keep a stiff upper lip.”

To which I can only add, Keep writing.