This week my speedy progress on Cawdor has been hampered by my lack of good sleep. I am even more tired all the time than I have been recently and that has dropped my per day productivity by half. I am still making progress and I am in many ways very happy with the product. (While still certain that no one else in the wide world will like it the way I do.)
The speed of this novel has mee thinking about the other novels I have written and how long it took, editing included.
My first novel was Freeholder an SF novel about liberal, pacifist survivalists. It was written while I was in high school from Sep 1978 through May 1979. The poor suffering readers of that novel endured a really horrid writer with no edits. Yesh, I pity them now.
Freeholder – 47,000 words over ten months
The next novel I wrote was much much later and it was The Mark of Cain. The first draft was written between January 2004 and July 2004, about seven months. It went to beta read, got properly savaged and I produced a new version by December of 2004
The Mark Of Cain – 121,000 words about seven months, plus five months re-write and edits.
The third novel I have written is Love and Loyalty. I started writing it October 2005 and finished the first draft February 2006. I spent two months editing that manuscript for the beta readers and it was ready by April 2004.
Love and Loyalty – 92,000 words five months to write and two months to edit.
(A special note on Love and Loyalty, In May of 2008 I started a line edit to tighten the prose and that turned into a major rewrite as I had an inspiration in how to improve the novel. So the final version experienced and additional round of edit lasting about five months.)
Cawdor has been different, it has been about two months and I am half-way through the first draft, and this is really surprising because I have been doing a rolling edit for the first time. I write a chapter, edit it, correct it, then move on to the next chapter. If I stay on this track Cawdor will take about 4 months to write AND edit.
Easy Peasy
It’s sitting in a box in my office. All 156 typed pages on thin onion skin paper 30 years old.
I read Freeholder. I liked it. Did it need work for it to have a chance of being published? Absolutely! Would I still like it today? Who knows? I must add this – you wrote that sucker ON A TYPEWRITER (which was the best we had at the time.) Computer technology has definitely made it possible for more people to write and to write at a higher level than at any time in the past – including you and me. With my own fumble-fingered nature, I am thrilled that we can edit before committing to paper! (I reverse letter often! And I am a poor speller!)
I do think Freeholder may work some day. I just wish I could figure out what hasppened to your original draft.