Comments on: The process

By: Tori C

Tori C — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 23:44:56 +0000

Ha ha, I was wondering if you sent it to the editor without correcting the “[Look this up]“s.

By: cindy

cindy — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 05:04:18 +0000

mine is almost exactly the same too!
but i think i aimed for more like 1k – 1200
words. tho with FURY i pushed myself for
longer words–altho they came so slowly.
because i was on a much tighter schedule.
i don’t edit either and reread to get back into
the story the following day.

rough drafting is so hard for me. i don’t
know how i do it. i have psyche myself up
and establish goals, like you do.

By: John

John — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:21:06 +0000

It’s nice to see how writers think in an authentic context. This gives me a lot more to talk about with my 3rd graders about how “real” writers go through the writing process.

By: A. Grey

A. Grey — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:45:38 +0000

My process is very similar! The main differences are that I write long hand and because I’m as-of-yet un-agented and working full time with horses (which are sort of like dealing with 1100 lb three year olds) I usually can’t get 1500 words written each day. Oh but I try, I PINE for 1500 words a day… and sometimes I get close.

Occasionally I go back farther and reread what I’ve written, especially if I’ve gotten to a point where I realize that the story needs to evolve differently than my original vision. Once I understand that, I want to know exactly how I set up plot point A or B, or whatever, in the beginning, so I can restructure what I’m working on right that moment. I’ll usually throw a note down back wherever the original set up is too, just to give me an idea of how I want to change it.

Once I’ve got the entire first rough draft written, I transcribe it into the computer which is also my first big overhaul edit. To my delight, the more I write, the less of a true ‘overhaul’ this step is becoming. After I’ve finished transcribing I’ll set the book aside for a week or so, and then go back and edit more, eventually sending it to my betas and on to agents.

By: Malinda Lo

Malinda Lo — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:53:32 +0000

Well, let’s say a final draft is about 80,000 words. So if I write 1500 words/day, it should take about 54 days to write a first draft. I write Mon-Fri, so it’s just about 11 weeks. However, I’d add in an extra week or two for slow days/writer’s block/life, so I’d say that if I were really lucky, a first draft could be done in 12-13 weeks.

As for how to turn off that inner editor, that may be fodder for an entire separate post. It’s hard, that’s true. It gets easier with practice, though.

By: Malinda Lo

Malinda Lo — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:51:00 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Deva. Here’s to that thundering finale!

By: Najela

Najela — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:31:44 +0000

I was wondering how do you turn off that inner editor? How long does it take to finish the rough draft?

By: Deva

Deva — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:51:12 +0000

My initial process is similar to yours except that with my dayjob taking up a chunk of time I usually shoot for 1K a day while drafting. And I also usually end up stopping at some point about 15-30K in and re-outlining/re-working everything, cutting out a bunch, etc. But I do the revise-what-you-wrote-the-day-before thing.

After I have the draft, I do a revision on my own that can be relatively substantial. I also have thus far always done a revision based on feedback from a few writing buddies before sending it to agent/editor.

And yeah, even though I outline, the rough draft is still a challenge because I am still, as you say, figuring out the style and finding the voice.

Have fun drafting! I’m just getting out of the middle of my mine, hoping for some of that thundering into the finale energy!

By: Kami Garcia

Kami Garcia — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:42:22 +0000

Malinda,

I’ll have to do mine because it’s so different. I love the fact that writers have different ways of ending up at the same place = book written.

By: Malinda Lo

Malinda Lo — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:13:45 +0000

I’m glad it helped, Valerie. Thanks for stopping by! I definitely believe that you can drain yourself dry by writing too much in one sitting. Coming up with new material takes a lot out of you, and with a first novel you’re doing a LOT of “new” things. Good luck with your book!