When my first book, A World Such as Heaven Intended, came out in October of 2014, I thought it was “one and done.” God had other plans. Here I am, nine years later, and yesterday I sent my 10th book off to the publisher.
One of the most asked questions I get is, “How long does it take to write a book?” That’s a great question. When I wrote my first novel, the process took about two years. I literally wrote only one chapter per month.
With each successive book, I’ve gotten the process down better. Over the last nine years, I’ve learned so much about writing—thanks to some amazing proofreaders and copy editors, and I’ve uncovered the mechanics of writing.
Now, each book that I complete, I swear it’s better than any of the ones I wrote before. Which is probably true. That being said, I’m enamored with the novel I just finished, Lucky & Blessed.
The writing process for this one was a total of nine weeks. Here’s the breakdown:
On April 27, 2023, while at a silent retreat, I peeked at my e-mails and found a note from my editor of the book Royal & Ancient, which comes out October 2, 2023.
Just a quick idea for you to ponder during your retreat and into the future. Would you be interested in writing royal stories for WhiteCrown? If so, I’d love to have you as part of my author team. =) There’s no pressure to answer, but think and pray about it and let me know whatever you decide. The door is open if royal inspiration ever strikes you.
To which I replied: I haven’t even been at this retreat three hours, and I just thought of something. I have a book set in 1540 in England during the reign of King Henry the VIII about the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and how it affects a young man and a young woman. I had written a short story of this for the book Treasures: Visible & Invisible. I had always wanted to turn it into a full-length book. This might be a good one to consider.
On May 4, I got this reply: Write away! Please and thank you and all the gratitude for all your writing projects coming to WFPG! I could not be happier with what you’ve produced so far, and I hope to see ALL of it as soon as possible. =)
May 9, I started writing the manuscript, with the deadline of September 1, 2023. That gave me 12 weeks to write a book. From scratch. No outline. Talk about a daunting task! BTW, when I say 12 weeks, I should clarify that six of those 12 weeks were vacation weeks for me and John.
It was a slow start. By July 1 I was already two weeks behind. I made the decision that I’d need to work nights, weekends, holidays, and vacation days if I was going to get this book done on time. Which is exactly what I did. Even when I was “relaxing” I was writing the book outline in my head.
However, that wasn’t even enough to get this project done on time. After years of hearing the advice from my husband about the advantage of using the Pomodoro Technique, I was finally desperate enough to get the timer from his office and implement this into my daily schedule. (FYI, The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method based on 25-minute stretches of focused work broken by five-minute breaks. Longer breaks, typically 15 to 30 minutes, are taken after four consecutive work intervals. NOTE: I used 45-minute stretches or writing sprints as I called them. No interruptions, particularly scrolling my phone, were allowed.)
This productivity stuff actually works. On August 11, 2023, I completed a 51,942-word novel (that’s 222 pages, 45 chapters, 114 pages of historical notes for those of you interested). It took three days to read through and proofread the manuscript.
As of August 16, 2023, the book is in the hands of my editor. Now, it’s a matter of waiting for her feedback and the developmental edits, which I’m hoping aren’t too extensive. Meanwhile, John and I are taking another week of vacation—a non-working vacation, and then I’m back at it, working on book #6 in my Heaven Intended Civil War series. You’ve got to make hay while the sun shines, don’t they say? And God has been shining His sun/son down on me in abundance the last few years, so I’ll keep on keeping on.