I’m frequently asked how long it takes me to write a book and I’m never sure how to answer because I’m not sure what the person is asking. Do they mean the actual physical act of writing? Or do they mean everything involved from conception to finished product? Conception to finished product covers a lot of time because the imagination is triggered in countless ways.
What kind of things trigger a writer’s imagination? They can include song lyrics, historical events, a sentence in a book or magazine, a casual conversation, a new recipe or even a dream. Once an idea takes hold, I start a file. This is normally a physical file, but I also use computer files. I come up with a working title and when I run across photos, newspaper articles, reference books, possible character names, research about possible jobs for a character or snippets of information about the time period, I put them in the file.
During this phase, I collect possibilities that may be used to tell that story some day. The truth is, I have more files than I have time to write, but it’s comforting to know there is always another story gestating.
Gestation
I like the word gestating because it means the development of something over a period of time and that’s what a book does. It develops over a period of time. Time that cannot be easily calculated because much of it takes place in the imagination where there are no clocks.
I’ll use Lady Runaway as an example. The book started with a dream scene that lodged itself firmly in my brain. I couldn’t forget it. The scene involved a young woman hiding in a 19th century London alley. She is pulling her hand, sticky with her own blood, away from her chest.
At the time I dreamed this, I was writing a Victorian era novel, but I’m an avid reader of Regency romances. I love the wit and humor of the short traditional Regency and use these books as a writing reward. I’d read one or two every weekend to give myself a refreshing change from the Victorian time period.
Once the scene in the London alley got stuck in my brain, I started mentally fleshing out a story line. Trying to figure out why this woman was in the alley, why she had been knifed, and what was going to happen to her next. I had read a lot about 19th century medicine so I knew a Regency doctor would be in this story. Who else could take care of her knife wound? Eventually, I outlined a possible story, but the real impetus for writing Lady Runaway came from the rejection of my Victorian era novel.
Rejection, Request, Success
An editor who read that submission (which would go on to be my first published historical romance–Stealing Destiny) liked my writing style, but couldn’t use that particular manuscript. She asked me if I had any Regency manuscripts because they were hot and she needed manuscripts. I pitched my idea for the book that would become Lady Runaway. She liked it so I wrote furiously, submitted the manuscript, made the suggested revisions, and resubmitted it, but in the end that version of Lady Runaway was rejected.
While the basics of the story were there, I don’t think that version had gestated long enough. During the next year, no longer under the pressure of trying to write a book before an editor forgot who I was, I tweaked, poked and prodded Lady Runaway into a better story (and better title). That’s the story that Twilight Times Books published. How long did it take me to write Lady Runaway? I really don’t know. I didn’t mark the calendar the morning I awoke from that dream scene, but it was probably a year or so later when I pitched the idea. Then I had to write it and revise it.
