The Writing Process - Part 2

Writing the book

 Once you have a publishing contract you also have a deadline. That can be both a motivator and a huge source of stress. (Currently I’m finding it the latter!) I tend to have a year to write a book, and am under contract to produce 100,000 words per novel, so I start by calculating how many words I need to write a month in order to cover the ground, allowing myself some leeway for unforeseen circumstances.

I spend a lot of time thinking about my characters in my ‘down time’ in order to make them as convincing as possible. Then I write the first draft of the story, trying not to worry too much about the fine detail, but just working out the plot (this is often known as the ‘vomit draft.’) When I need to do some research I just write a note to myself and highlight it so I can find it easily in the manuscript later on. I tend to write in a great panic, constantly worried I won’t meet the deadline.

Once I have a first draft I can relax a bit. Often writers are advised to leave a draft in a drawer for six weeks in order to come to it ‘afresh’ and thus be more objective about their writing, but I don’t feel I can spare that amount of time. Luckily I have the memory of a goldfish so I can look at something I wrote only a day or so ago and feel genuinely surprised. My second draft is when I try to improve the writing quality, check for consistency in character and action, ensure the chronology is correct, and weave in any extra research I have undertaken in the meantime. I may also run some chapters past my writing friends to get a second or third opinion.

Hopefully I have met the deadline, and can then take the manuscript to the next stage.