When I was writing my reader’s note at the end of Beltane and Blondies Chapter 15, I realized that 4 the Words tracks the time spent in the document. (psst. Here’s my referral code if you’re interested and want free subscription time: PSBCK46182 ).
Okay, so I had realized that before, but never really paid much attention to it. In addition to tracking the time spent in a single document, it also tracks the time spent in a project.
I’d never thought to leverage this data for my own writing process.
Maybe it was the podcast I listened to the other day about knowing where your time is going and budgeting your time accordingly between writing/editing new books and marketing.
The case is, I actually have the data of how long it takes me to write a draft and how long it takes me to edit. I’d like to get more efficient at editing, so let’s take a look.
I didn’t note down how long I spent in the rough draft of Beltane and Blondies (Gold Valley #4), but I outlined and wrote Gold Valley #4 and Gold Valley #5 back to back. So even though I’m pretty far into the edits of GV4, I do know how long it took me to outline and draft GV5.
Outline + Rough Draft
GV5: The 33 files that comprise the outline, notes, and rough draft took me 25 hours, 59 minutes, and 43 seconds.
The rough draft took me about three weeks. So….since I know that I was writing between 4:30 and 8am, makes me think that there was some noodling going on, thinking and whatnot that does not appear in the time actually spent typing in the documents that are in the folder. But I also wrote blog posts, wrote email newsletters, and worked on marketing on those days, so this is actual writing in the document time. The clock stops when I haven’t made changes in a while or navigate away from that window
The 33 files comprising the outline, notes, and my mid-way through the second revision pass of GV4 (I’m on my second pass revision in the middle of the fourth act–no spoilers, but the killer has been revealed), is at 99 hours 12 minutes of work.
Going forward, I’m going to add to this file for how long outline, rough draft, and both revision passes take.
And I’m going to continue to try to become more efficient. This happens two-fold, I think, first from learning other people’s (more efficient methods), but also the cumulative effect of all that practice means, I get better at writing cleaner drafts and I get better at editing the drafts.
Why am I sharing this?
First, this post is largely a device for me to have one repository of my data.
I plan to edit it with screen shots of future projects at different points so that i have all of this information in one place. I also thought other writers might be interested in the actual time spent writing, editing, plotting, and revising.
Second, dear reader you might be more forgiving of how long it takes me to get a book out, if I show you how my process works (and I have another post about the time I spend writing but long story short I wake up between 4 a.m. — I can maintain 4 a.m. for about six weeks–and 6:30 a.m. and finish writing at 8 a.m., unless the kids wake up early.
The hours and the amount of time I have per day determines how quickly I can get my next book to you. So, that’s why the hours and the days separately are important. And, well, if I track this then, I might have a chance of actually predicting when my next book will launch 🤷♀️
If I can sneak in an evening session (at a write in somewhere, almost never at the house because OMG seriously, that is not happening here with two kids that don’t know how to respect a shut door….though maybe if I can get Mr. Browne to take the kiddos to the park I could write while they are away at the park…) that adds an extra hour or two and gets me that much closer.
P.S. If you join 4 the Words with my referral code: PSBCK46182 you get free crystals (aka the ability to buy extra subscription time).
Do you like my character? Mr. Six works very hard to make my character look just right. Right now, I’m sporting a beard like his dad (even though my beard is way bigger than Dad’s real life one) and a miner’s helmet because he likes Minecraft.