How many hours a day do you write and How long on average does it take you to write a book?

Hi Everyone, wishing you all a beautiful day! It Started getting colder and rainy, foggy days here in Washington State.

Let's get started to our question and answer portion as an Author.

How many hours a day do you write?

Well, how do you define writing? If you’re talking about sitting at my computer with my fingers on the keys, between one and 20 hours per day. It depends on how much time I have available, which means every minute I can. I don’t watch TV. I work, spend time online with friends, family, and fans, and when I can I read from a website that I enjoy. Like all things in life, some of what is published there is mundane but there are some brilliant wordsmiths there as well.

However, I define writing as my brain being in creative mode, regardless of what my body is doing. This might include doing research into specific technologies that the team is using, or what the sailing conditions were in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean on June 25, 2020. Then there is the subconscious writing process that goes on constantly, regardless of where I am. For instance, I once wrote some awesome dialog while driving in rush hour traffic. Another time I had a revelation for a transformative scene in a novel, which changed the entire direction of the series. I can remember thinking something had happened that I had no idea was part of the story.

It can be like that. One minute I’m driving down the road or lying in bed and WHAM some concept or dialog comes into my mind and I often think “Wow, didn’t see that coming!” From that perspective, I spend every minute of every day writing.

That leads to the next question,

How long on average does it take you to write a book?

These questions are hard to answer! First, my books are about twenty-four chapters of 4,000 words each, so we aren’t talking about pulp fiction. They are also very complex and involve subjects that demand a lot of research, such as how to import sixteen Arabian horses from Pakistan; sail multi-hulled boats in the Caribbean; or defeat the security system and perform a murder in a modern hotel, while making it appear that someone else did it. In my perfect world, I can write a chapter per day, plus research. The short answer is about three months IF I can write and research uninterrupted. My perfect world doesn’t happen often. I edited Austin five times until I got it where I wanted it. As some of you know, I started writing that story in first-person present tense and got fifteen chapters in before I realized it didn’t work. I discovered that once I split the scenes and left the primary character out I would have to use a personality break if I wanted to continue using first-person, and I didn’t want to do that. The plot was getting so twisted, delightfully so, and I wanted to change perspectives to third-person. That being the case, I had to rewrite everything from the start and that took months to really complete; there were so many embedded issues and I had four rewrites before I felt like I got them all.

In comparison, Vegas took me about two months, and Seattle, a two-book marathon, took about six. In that process, I got inspired to write Sarah’s Story, so I jumped over to that work and actually finished it before completing Seattle: The Reckoning. Lightning Strikes was fast in comparison. I started and finished it in less than two months.

The result was six books in two years. Now, it’s been more than a year and I’m close to publishing Julienne Begins Again, but I’ve already started Iron Age (working title) and done a lot of outlining and scene development for Operation: Nashville. I also have written all or parts of eight short stories, although I may never publish them. They are explorations into topics that are very controversial and for the most part take taboo subjects, with preposterous plots, and see if I can make them seem plausible. That’s harder to do than it sounds.

I do have outlines for about eight other novels, spin-offs of the original Booker series.

I feel very blessed to be so prolific, I recently met an author who took fifteen years to write her first book. I don’t have that kind of dedication.

THANK YOU for your time reading my articles today! if you have any ideas feel free to comments.
Your honest reviews is much appreciated.

VS Campbell
Author
Credit to the Photographer: Iamproudpinay