Neil's Blog

October 11th 2018
PUBLISHING A BOOK IN SIX MONTHS
Back in April I decided that I was going to see if I could write an entire draft of a new book in thirty days. I was going nowhere fast with the second draft of my latest 'proper' novel and needed to try something different.
I set myself a modest target. I would write a simple ghost story, keep it short and tight, no research, with just one or two locations and a handful of characters. I decided to write it without a plan, just go with the flow and see where it took me.
My initial idea felt like it would run to a short story, so I was surprised when the first draft, completed in 28 days, was more like a novella in length at 21k words. I took a week off then started the second draft. There was a fair amount of cutting needed and some back story to add. I also needed to make a fundamental change to the relationship at the heart of the story as my first attempt lacked drama.
Another month and I had a second draft. Up to 26k words now so definitely a decent novella length. It was enjoyable to write but not to read – the pacing was off and I couldn’t get the character development plausible. Also, the writing was still not as good as I wanted – I was overwriting descriptions and dialogue waffled on too long.
Another week off, then back for a third draft. I switched the PoV and found that helped with my depiction of characters. I threw out some chapters and rewrote almost everything anew. Draft three took a month and was 31k words, which felt right. I could see a finishing line and I was still enjoying it – some passages were proving frustrating but I was working my way through them. The simplicity of the story helped - I toyed with the idea of expanding it to novel length (~60k words) but didn't want to overcomplicate things.
Month four and I finished the latest draft with a comprehensive edit and sent it to Tina, my trusted first reader. It was 34k words and it felt like it was pretty much there.
Tina's a sharp and fair critic. She didn't understand the story and gave me a few pages of invaluable notes. I'd over-complicated my story, removed too much of the exposition and that had left it too confusing. Working from her notes and feedback I had a rethink and worked on a fifth draft, rewriting the final half of the book and changing the story completely in the final chapters. 37k words, which became 204 pages in the paperback edition. I was pleased with it, Tina gave it the thumbs up and anyway, that happy ending was never going to work for a ghost story, was it?
Month six was spent getting feedback from a few other early readers, one last edit, finalising the paperback and Kindle formatting and metadata then submitting the finished files to Amazon for review and publication. The proof edition of the print had a handful of easily-corrected errors and there's been the usual fun and games getting the book's Kindle and paperback versions paired correctly on Amazon and GoodReads, but it's all done, done, DONE!
From nowt to a published book in six months (with a week between each draft to recharge) – it can be done, and it's been a lot of fun!