by Dame Devon

Now mind you, I am not the fastest writer. A lot of authors write more than three books a year and still have time to write several short stories, novellas, and hey, maybe a script or two. But since this year was the first time I’ve tried something new–writing three books in twelve months–I thought I’d share a little about my process.

First, let’s go over the reality of how much time goes into writing ONE book. For me, the steps are:

•    Outline –  3 days to 1 week
•    Write zero draft  –  3 to 4 months
•    Revise for reader draft — 1 week
•    Revise with reader input  –  3 days to 1 week
•    Submit & wait for reply  –  3 weeks to 4 months
•    Revise with editor’s input  –  1 to 2 weeks
•    Wait for copy edits  –  1 to 2 months
•    Revise copy edits  –  1 week
•    Wait for proofs  –  1 month
•    Revise proofs  –  1 week

So from the very first step of, “hey, I have an idea” to “The End” it’s about 9 months. But wait, you say, there’s an awful lot of waiting time in that schedule. You’re right! And that waiting time (plus the 3 other months of the year) are there for the taking. Maybe you’re the kind of writer who will want to spend more time on the outline, or on the first (zero) draft. Maybe you’re the kind of writer who hates revision and will take a couple extra weeks for that part of the process.

Cool. That’s absolutely fine to do if you want to write one book a year. And many, many, many successful writers do. One book a year is a great pace. (And if you want to look at it via daily word count, to draft a book in 4 months, it’s: 1,000 words a day (approximately 4 double-spaced pages)  5 days a week for 80 days =  80,000 word novel.)

But what if you want to write two books a year? How do you fit 18 months of work into 12?

You’ll work on book B during the waiting times for book A. Brilliant! And it works too.

Except….remember, you won’t have control over when book A’s revisions/copy edits/proofs show up. Your editor is also a very busy person and she is working on many other books too. So when the editorial letter/copy edits/proofs land in your inbox, you’ll need to drop everything you’re doing on book B and switch projects to hit those tight turn-around deadlines. (Revisions, copy edits, and proofs each require you to go through your novel from beginning to end at least once.)

Ok, you say, it’s workable. Basically six months of the year for each book, with work from one slotted into the wait time of the other.  Yes.

But what if you want to write three books a year? This, for me, was where it got tricky.

The Allie Beckstrom books come out every six months, in November and May. That schedule was pretty easy to hit. It cut the year nicely in half and scattered my deadlines in a manageable manner.

Adding in the deadlines for the steampunk novel, DEAD IRON, which will be released in July 2011, didn’t cut my writing schedule and year nicely in thirds. Because of the deadlines already in place for the Allie Beckstrom novels, DEAD IRON had to be written in two time blocks–at the beginning of the year for a month-and-a-half, then dropped while I wrote an entire Allie Beckstrom novel, then picked back up in the summer and finished in two months.

Did I do it? Yes, so far. I’ll turn in DEAD IRON on September 1st, my deadline for that book, then dive right into the editorial revisions I’ve received for book #6 of the Allie Beckstrom series. After that, I’ll start work immediately on the next Allie Beckstrom book.

What’s my point about all this scheduling mumbo-jumbo?

My point is this: even though I have never tried writing three books a year, some of the things I did before I was published gave me the skills to pull this off.

1. I wrote a book in a year. I did that for several years, getting used to the schedule, learning through trial and error my processes, how to fit “real life” around my writing career, and getting the feel for creating a work that size at a yearly pace.

2. I gave my work to trusted readers and learned how to revise to the input that rang true to me. It’s important to get comfortable with revisions, and practice doing them in a timely manner, because revising on deadline is part of the process too.

3. I tried to write every day, (hey, I’m not perfect, there were lots of days I failed, lol!) I learned that if I wrote every day it kept me from getting rusty, and words–good words–added up more quickly than if I wrote in bursts here and there.

4. I thought about what my next book was going to be while I was writing the current book. Having the next cool thing out there waiting for me helped to keep me going when the book I was working on got difficult.  It also let me practice outlining and beginning the next book with very little down time between projects.

5. I learned to get comfortable with the work that goes into writing, and even learned to like the hard stuff that makes my brain hurt.

And mostly, I learned that all writing, no matter if it’s fast or slow, finished or just a glimmer of an idea, is a vital part of the process of being a writer. There are no wrong ways to be a writer. There is only your way, and your way might change daily, or remain constant throughout your career. But it is up to each of us to try, fail, learn, explore, and maybe even thrive in the challenges we face.  We must have the courage to set our eyes on a dream, and not stop until we write our way to it.

by Dame Devon

FIRST AN ANNOUNCEMENT: The winner of T.L. Schaefer’s signed copy of THE SAINTS OF MIDLAND and a $25 gift certificate to Amazon will be chosen Sunday, Auguest 8th by midnight.  Still plenty of time to enter to win!

So last night, I was struggling with writing a chapter of the book (as an aside, some chapters write fast, some make snails look like speedboats.)  (As another aside, when I go back to revise those chapters, I can’t tell the difference between the fast-written and the slow-slog.) Where was I?  Ah, yes, struggling with a chapter of the book that I had been working on for four days.

Tired of banging my head against the monitor, I walked away for a short break, and flipped on the TV to the Food Network and the show, The Next Food Network Star. The basic premise of the show is that the contestants are all chefs from different backgrounds. Some work in restaurants, some are food bloggers, some are caterers, some went to famous cooking schools, some are home cooks.

All of these chefs, from different training and experiences are competing to get their own show on the Food Network.  Their weekly challenges are based on a “theme” i.e. cook something that represents an emotion we’ll assign you, cook something that represents you, but do it with your least favorite food in the world, take an old classic and make it new, etc.  Oh, and do it on a time limit.

I’d caught a few episodes of this show before, but wasn’t following every week.  I don’t know why, but last night it finally dawned on me how much this show parallels a writers’ life.

Writers come from hugely different backgrounds and have different natural abilities, different “spices” and skills in their comfort zones, and very individual ideas about what makes something “good.”  Writers are all hoping to have their own “show” (novel, series, book, short story, article, etc.) out there where people can enjoy it.  And writers are all hoping the judges (editors, agents, readers) will pick their dish, and that they will have a long and successful career making more stuff that people will enjoy.

And suddenly, the entire show transformed for me. This week they were down to five chefs (writers) out of about a dozen or so.  The judges (publishing industry/readers) gave them the challenge  of cooking a dish to represent a single word (genre) assigned by the judges.  The chefs (writers) had 30 minutes (deadline) and $300.00 to shop for the dishes’ ingredients (outline/plot) Then they had 1 hour (deadline) to start their dish, which would be served in front of the judges and two guest experts (editors/agents/readers).  They didn’t get to *finish* their dishes that night.  They got one hour, then had to shove it aside to get on with real life.  (Um…just like in real life.)

The next day, they had 30 minutes to finish the dish (revisions) and present it to the judges and guest experts.(submission)

Here’s the thing that absolutely struck home with me. The chefs were judged on the success of the dish and also on their introduction of it (cover letter/query/synopsis) and their personal attitude toward it.  It was fascinating to see the chefs who lost confidence in their dish halfway through cooking it and who felt worse and worse about it, to the point that when they presented their dish, all they could see were the flaws. (Writers? Are you listening?) They gave poor presentations, and even if the judges liked the dish, the judges didn’t like that the chef wasn’t confident enough to believe in their own creation.

There was one chef who had never won a single challenge in the entire show (months of rejections). He decided he was going to keep a positive attitude and give it all he had to knock it out of the park.  He relaxed into what he was doing and believed in his voice, his story, and his own unique point of view. He hoped it would win, but more than that, he knew he was the only person who could tell his story his way. He stopped worrying, and stopped comparing himself to other competitors, and maybe even stopped working for the judges and instead worked to make that plate something he enjoyed and was having fun with.

(You know where I’m going with this, right?)

The guy who had never won before won.

In the discussion with the other contestants, one chef who had won several other challenges, (been published) said she thought she’d gotten rid of the fear of failure weeks ago, but it was back and that fear of failure halfway through cooking her dish had tripped her up so bad, she had failed the challenge.

You know what the judges said?  “When you have your own show, you’re not going to have a group of therapists standing around every day to tell you you’re good enough.  How bad do you want this?”

And I heard, “You have to believe in yourself.  You have to believe in your story.  Don’t let fear kill the joy of what you can bring to the table.  Write it.  Write it with all your heart, and never look back.”

Then I turned off the TV and finished that damn chapter.

And just for fun, you can click here to see a You Tube interview my publisher did with me a couple months ago. I was actually very nervous about the interview, but I didn’t let my fear of failure get in the way of telling my story, the best I could.