The process I use for writing books closely follows what I learned from Stephen King and his book On Writing. I write 2,000 words a day until the story ends. I then read the story in its entirety and make minor changes until I feel it is ready to be read by my Ideal Reader (Kayla, my wife). Once she reads it and I am ready to discuss it with her, I do. After I have finished my first draft, the story goes on the digital shelf for six weeks. I then work on other projects like writing short stories and blog posts as well as recording podcasts and videos.
When the six weeks are up, I read the book again in its entirety. At this point, the story should be somewhat new to me and I should be able to look at it with a different perspective than a writer who has just written it. I am at that stage now with my book, The Recruit (working title). I just finished reading it this morning and I have found many things that I feel need to be added to or deleted. I had written the book in the simple present tense, but I realize that I want to change it to the past tense. This will take a bit of work.
While I am doing that work I will be adding more meat to the story and removing the fat that doesn’t sell the story. I do not like reading stories that go on and on about things of no consequence just to fill in the spaces. However, I can enjoy a long story if everything helps to move it along. I recently read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles which has 155,440 words and covers 480 pages and I loved it all. I am not at Amor’s level yet, but I am hopeful that with my continued efforts and learning, I will be someday.
Be on the lookout for The Recruit as I hope to have it published within the next month, but I am not setting a deadline for completion…just a daily work schedule until the story is complete.
