Yesterday I posted that I was finished reading and pen/ink revising through my latest novel, the 9th draft of the book, and was looking forward to putting those revisions into the computer.

Last night, I slept really hard.

Lights out and goodbye.

Though it may not seem the case, writing is a very stressful, time consuming job.  Job as in work.

I’ve stated it before but it bears repeating: Writing is WORK.  At times very, very hard work.

I started this latest book in the Corrosive Knights series, believe it or not, waaaaaay back in 2014.  I wrote some notes and sequences, amounting to maybe 10,000-15,000 words, then let it go while working on, among other things, Foundry of the Gods (Book #6 of the Corrosive Knights series).

When Foundry of the Gods was finished, it was back to Book #7, the conclusion to the Corrosive Knights series, and for nearly two years now I’ve been working on it and, incrementally, brought it closer and closer to its conclusion.

The first 4-5 drafts of the book were very incomplete, as most of my novels are in those early drafts.  There are some segments that I have well thought out and write.  There are other segments that may be presented as nothing more than an outline.  Perhaps no more than one or two sentences!

Which brings us to the heading above: Persistence.

With each read-through, with each putting revisions into the computer, I move the proverbial ball forward.  Sometimes the ball “moves” many miles forward.  At other times, perhaps it doesn’t move forward nearly enough.

With each revision and if I’m paying attention -and, trust me, I try my very best to do so- the novel slowly emerges.

There are “a-ha!” moments, where you come up with some clever bit or sequence or dialogue that improves everything around it.  But more often than not what you’re doing is realizing this doesn’t work or that sentence is bloated or that sequence is a repetition of a sequence that came before.

Rather than simply cracking open your cranium and letting your thoughts spill all over the page, what I tend to do as a writer is incrementally build my book over time.  I’ve mentioned before that when I’m writing, a day doesn’t pass where I’m not thinking about some part of a book I’m currently on and how do I improve this or that.

This goes on for, on average of late, two full years as I write my latest work.

For some writers, the process is certainly quicker.  Stephen King, as I’ve noted before, stated in his book on writing that he will write a book, put it away in a drawer (to, as he put it, “cool down”), then do a revision and off it goes to be printed.  If he’s to be believed, that means his first run through a novel is very close to what he eventually releases.

I’m jealous!

Clearly what works for me may not work for others.  I suspect if Mr. King took two full years to write a novel he might have given up the career.

But for me, as much of a pain in the ass as it is to so slowly, incrementally create a book, the fact of the matter is that this is how it works for me, and when I get to the end of this particular road I look back at all that hard work and the persistence needed to create it…

…and I’m proud of the work.  So very proud.

And I finally, finally get to have a good night’s sleep! 😉