What an appropriate question for Novel Writing Month!

How many hours a day do you write? How long on average does it take you to write a book?

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Right now, novelists around the world are attempting to write a novel in one month – about 50,000 words, which means about 1700 words per day.

I don’t wholly participate in Nanowrimo. I tried it once and that book will never see the light of day. I did everything they said to do. Plotted it out ahead of time. Got to know my characters. And I actually wrote 60,000 words in November 2014. Uh, wait! Hadn’t I already published a novel by that time? Why, yes, I had! So what went wrong?

I’m a discovery writer. Plotting makes my characters go rogue and when my characters rebel, I write crap! What I produced was full of plot holes and characters acting out of their “character”. And, yeah, I tried to fix it, but no — that book will never see the light of day. The characters no longer talk to me, so there’s no point in trying. I have scavenged portions of it for other books that had nothing to do with it, so it wasn’t a complete loss, but it was a really BAD book.

But you publish a novel annually!

I do. Well, I have. I try to do so. I’ve come pretty close to not accomplishing it some years. Next year, I think I might publish two novels and Fount of Wraiths (Book 3 in Daermad Cycle) should move a little closer to completion. It just has to do where my projects are in terms of completion because I don’t focus on just one project at a time.

How do you do it then?

I always have a primary and secondary project and sometimes I have a tertiary project and several works-in-progress that are nowhere near completion. I also have a back catalog of stories I wrote for my own amazement and I slowly develop those into polished stories. My problem is not ideas for stories, but focusing on one project so that I finish it, but if I focus too long on one project I risk getting bored and have my characters stop talking to me.

I can complete a rough draft of a Transformation Project book in three months. The high points of the plot are already set because it’s a series and quite frequently my characters have told me the next book’s story before I finish the one I’m about to publish. Three months allows me the freedom I need to discover the subplot of a story that has a long arc. Last year, I wrote the rough draft for Gathering In during Nanowrimo. In a way, I cheated because I took a 20,000-word manuscript and expanded it to a 60,000-word manuscript in those 30 days. Not exactly following the rules, but I produced a better product, avoiding major plot holes, for example. Other years, I have used Nano for editing my rough draft. It’s not that I don’t find it useful, but that my characters won’t allow me to rush the story and they don’t generally follow plots that I outline. They prefer to forge their own paths.

This year, I’m expanding a 20,000-word manuscript novel into a 60,000-word YA/NA novel. Again, I’m not following the rules. I’ve been working on a related-piece for this novel for years. I know the characters really well. The actual project had a lot of backstory that really needed to be explained, but I hate info dumps, and I finally accepted that the story of characters were telling me was worth telling as its own story. The next part of the story might come out the following year, since it’s pretty much a polished manuscript that just needs the backstory reduced to references (saving about 20,000 words, which was preventing it from nearing publication). I’ve written about 15,000 words this month, which means I’m behind my goal. Big deal. Maybe the story only needs 50,000 words or maybe I’ll finish the rough-ish draft in December. I’m set on writing a decent story, not speed writing crap.

But You Set Goals, Right?

I do. I strive to write every day … although yesterday, I wrote 10 words – one sentence. Things came up and sometimes that’s how life is. (I must also admit that I am currently working on a non-fiction article for my employer, so I really wrote 350 words yesterday. I wrote the 10 for myself and then closed the laptop and joined my husband watching a murder mystery on Netflix. My brain needed a break).

Most days, I try to write at least 500 words. In 30 days, that’s 15,000 words. But some days, I write a thousand. My record is about 3400 words in a single day. They were GOOD words too. My muse was working overtime and I went with it.

I almost always finish a rough draft for Transformation Project in three months. It’ll come out to around 60,000 words, about 600–700 words a day. Most TP novels publish at 80,000 words, so that gives me some wriggle room on rewrite. I then take a month off that manuscript and work on something else. Again, I’m aiming for 500 words a day, but I have days when I don’t write (because life is what happens while we’re banging on the keyboard) and days when I’m way over that word limit. Since this is unstructured writing time, those 15,000 words might not all be on one story.

I don’t track hours. Although writing is my second profession and I do make some money from it, I don’t want it to feel like it’s a job, so I don’t track hours.

Do you see how that works?

I have an overall goal to publish one novel a year, but I don’t hold that goal so tightly that it gets in the way of my desire to produce a good story. I have a goal to finish a rough draft of my primary project in three months, but I don’t hold that goal so tightly that I tolerate plot holes and character assassination or risk burning out my muse. I have a goal to write at least 500 words a day, but I recognize some days are going to be less-productive writing days and that’s fine because I find real life to be a great source of inspiration.

Writing is not an assembly line!

I’m not a Ladies’ Garment Workers employee. I’m an artist whose characters inform my output. I can’t do it any other way and produce high quality stories. So, while I have goals, I don’t kill myself to meet them, but it always seems to work out that I publish at least one novel a year, which isn’t too bad when you consider that some of the professionals can’t seem to do that.

Now, I gotta get back to novel writing. I’m about 10,000 words behind.

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The night of the pulse, Geo Tully and Wes Marcus were in the basement of Wes’ aunt’s home that had become their safehouse.

Wes, a wiry com tech barely old enough to shave regularly, held up a photo album that showed a man standing in front of the post-World War 2 bungalow with a shovel. The front door stood behind him, but not the view of the house that Geo recognized. The articulated arm of a backhoe could be seen on the edge of the frame.

“The porch is an addition,” Geo acknowledged.

A Navy Seal from Kansas, Geo towered over his Seattle-raised compatriot. They’d thrown in together when Bunnell & Wilson’s Knights Industry division seized control of the city by murdering military personnel. Wes’ uncle Fred had been an urban survivalist before he died a few years ago and his aunt Connie had died in Portland’s bomb attack. Their house had been a safe haven for two fugitives, so far.

“And look at how deep the hole is behind him.”

Geo turned to the front wall of the basement. The shelves had kept him from investigating here. They appeared to be attached to the wall, but when he ran his hand along the back edge of the shelving unit, he found a throw-bolt. He pulled it down and tugged on the shelves, swinging them out away from the wall. Hinged on the far side, they glided on hidden casters. Behind the shelves an open space stretched the length of the porch. Geo tried the light on the ceiling, but it didn’t turn on. He used the flashlight on his phone to illuminate the small room. A ham radio sat at one end, covered with plastic, while storage boxes filled the other end.

“I knew that tower had to still have a use.” Wes squatted down to look under the table the radio sat on. As an Army communication tech, he knew radios. “He left it disconnected. It’ll take me a moment.”

The light bulb in the main basement flared and popped off. Wes smacked his head on the underside of the table. Geo’s phone light went out.

“What’s that smell?” Wes stood, sniffing.

“My phone just fried, I think.”

They fumbled around in the dark to find the stairs and make their way to the kitchen. Duke, the Labrador retriever, stood in the living room, staring at the window and whining.

Geo peeked out the curtains as the neighbors came out on their porch, staring around.

“You smell that?” Wes asked. “I’m going to go check for fire.”

“Do you hear that?”

Duke whined louder. Raucous voices filtered in through the glass. Geo watched as the neighbors ran off their porch. Wes swept the front door open.

“What the hell?” Geo growled.

“They need help.” Wes ran into the street.

“Stay, Duke,” Geo ordered and followed his stupid partner into the street, where the neighbors could get a full view of their high-and-tights. They’d agreed they wouldn’t do that, but Wes had forced them all in. A municipal bus sat at the corner, smoke pouring out of its windows as the people inside tried to get out, screaming, kicking, punching at the glass, but when one window shattered, it just fed the fire that doomed them.

Wes ran to the rear passenger door and tried to pull it open, convulsing and chewing his tongue, smoke rising from his body.

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