I am delighted to kick off our next TA series on the topic: "Answer a writing question I often get from readers or my students." I have done very few author visits since I am in the classroom with my own 4 and 5-year-old students during the school day. So, I asked my students if they had any author questions for me. Here’s what they said:
- How do you make the pictures? How do you make the words?
- How hard does it take?
- How long does it take to write the words of a book?
- How long does it take to make the whole outside of the book
and how was the outside of the book made?
- How long does it take to make all of the pages?
- How do you write the words like this?
- How do you write a whole book? Would it take 20 hours?
- Does the illustrator and the writer have to draw what looks
like the writer wrote?
- So, what stories do you do on those books?
Overwhelmingly, the students asked about process and more importantly about the amount of time it takes to write and/or create a book.
Interestingly, I think many writing-curious adults wonder the same thing. So, I am going to tackle this as a teacher and as an author.
As a teacher, the most important thing I teach about writing is that it is a process, not a product. That it is a joyful habit filled with delight.
We recently had a professional development in which writing was looked at by many of my colleagues as an unpleasant necessity of life, a task to teach unwilling children, steps to impart in a lesson. When writing is taught as a task, it lacks the element of time. Why would you want to engage in an unpleasant activity over a sustained period of time? Better to suck it up, push through to the end, and complete the obligation. It makes my heart hurt. Probably the biggest disservice is to the revision process. In school, we destroy future writers by demanding that writing should be revised almost immediately after the first draft is written. It wasn’t until I became an author that I understood the magic of the revision process and how time away from the words helps the writer see the repetitions, poor use of words, leaps in logic, and holes in the story. I had been trained from a very young age to leap into revising as a tedious process that one had to complete to get to the end. Let’s stop doing this to new writers. Let’s give them the gift of time and pleasure.
As an author, this question is a bit more nuanced and complicated. All authors have their own process. I usually begin with a theme that I want to explore (same as my process as a visual artist). Then I develop a “what if” these characters were faced with “that”. From the “what if” emerges a story. I often sit on this developing story while it simmers, stews, and swirls around my brain sometimes for days, months, or possibly years. Sometimes I write it down and try to find the story although it often evades me when I do this. When I use this method, I usually run it past at least a couple of critique groups a few times and then past a couple of critique partners before sending it to my agent for her notes. This can take weeks or months. More recently, I think on it, dream on it, and let it marinate until it’s ready to burst out onto the paper/screen. Sometimes if I’m lucky, the story that jumps out is intact. If this is the case, I usually show it to one or two critique partners then send it off to my agent for notes. This process can take as little as a few days to a week, before the manuscript is ready to go on submission. Recently I had a conversation with a writer at a retreat who adamantly stated that they hated writers who brought their untouched first draft to critique sessions without having reworked it several times first. Clearly, they have a different process and didn’t take into account the time the story spent in my head before it poured out in one attempt. Time is irrelevant during the creative process. There is no right or wrong. There is only what is right for the writer/artist in their authentic process.
Time plays a part in the querying process. This can be excruciatingly long and is often not fruitful. I have manuscripts that have been on submission to various editors for a few years. Sometimes we get feedback/rejections within the first couple of weeks and sometimes the submission process drags on. For an author there seems to be no rhyme nor reason. I am often amazed at the randomness of it all and rejection is an agreed upon part of this lifestyle.
The question of time also comes into play in the actual production of the book after the manuscript is sold. I believe the norm is 2 years for a picture book. The manuscript for Hello, Little One was sold in 2018 and the publishing date was in 2020. The manuscript for Egyptian Lullaby was sold in 2018 but the publishing date was not until 2023. Sometimes the length of time changes according to the availability of the illustrator. Generally speaking, the production time of the books is more predictable than the creative time of the author before the sale.
Process over product cannot be measured by time.
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