How consuming is writing a book, how long does it take and what amount of research is required?
Writing one of my books is all-consuming. I don’t know how it is for other authors, I only know that for me, there are long strings of 14- to 18-hour days to get the major story down. Now that I’m writing professionally, there are hard deadlines that have to be met. I can either choose to work normal, eight-hour days and compromise on story quality due to time constraints, or I can work two “shifts” a day and basically double the amount of time I can put into the book. Coming up with a book concept can take a month, it can take ten years, I don’t know until all the elements come together and give me a framework upon which to place plot and character. Once I have that framework, it takes me about a month to hammer out the first outline. After that, the first draft takes about six weeks of nonstop writing. During that time, characters develop and start to do things I don’t want them to do, they act outside of my outline. When that happens, I know I’m on the right path — when characters
