Read In Bed!

So, because you want to know how how a working writer does it, here’s my process.

1. Write the book. Generally accompanied by gnashing and wailing about how I never have enough time to finish. (When, duh, obviously I do.) I write in Times New Roman 14 pt., 1 inch margins, spacing set at exactly 25 lines per page. Don’t ask me to write in Courier. It gives me hives. I end up with a 400 page book that’s approximately 100,000 words long or a bit longer (for cutting.) This is the length I prefer to submit. It might vary from 398 to 405, and I have finished books that were longer and short stories and novellas that were shorter, but generally for novels my mind works toward 400 pages, approximately 100k.

2. Print out all pages of the book as I complete each section. (In case of computer failure and also in order to use them later for editing) Put them in a three ring binder to keep them pretty. Keep notes in a special notebook about things I need to add or whatever.

3. Go over the printout by hand with a colored pen. Mark corrections and places where I need to add sections to fill in bare spots. Cut out stuff I don’t need. Literally cut and paste sections on the paper from one place to another so I can read the book all the way through the way it should read. Gnash and moan about how much I suck. (When duh, obviously, it’s not that bad.)

4. IM friends to moan about how much I suck.

5. Enter all corrections, added sections, parts that were in the wrong places, etc. Print out again. I do this ususally in Times New Roman pt. 10, single spaced, 1 inch margins. Yes, it’s tiny. But it takes up less paper. I might even print out on the backs of previously used paper. As this process begins, I usually send it out to my army of fabulous crit partners who I can trust to be honest and tell me the places that really do suck.

6. As I get feedback, I go over it again, one last time. I mesh my final changes with the feedback from my readers (and at this point, it’s usually minor stuff, hardly any BIG changes), enter all the corrections, check it over one last time and send it off to my agent. I used to send it directly to my small press editor and still do that for the short stuff I do for them, but for Spice it goes first to my lovely agent who makes sure it’s good and sends it off to Canada.

This process takes me about 3 months. Two to write the book and one to edit. Not because the editing takes sooooooo long — it’s actually pretty fast, but I like to sit on the book between stages and also give my readers time to actually read it and they, like, ya know, have lives and stuff. So it can take a month for me to polish and edit the book, and this chafes me because I know how close I am to being finished. So I moan and groan about how I’ll never be done! But I want to send each book as close to perfect as it can be, as clean as I can make it. And that’s pretty clean, I’m not ashamed to say.

So, that’s it. The process. Three months per book. Give or take.