Saturday, February 4, 2012

Going into a cave and time line...

Within the next 24 or so hours, give or take a few, I'm going to finish my 13th novel. My 13eth to be published novel. There are many more that have never been finished, but when I realized tonight that I was on number 13, I kind of wondered how in the world my fingers haven't fallen off or my brain hasn't imploded yet. But more on that in a second.

Over the next couple of months, I will be editing about five or so novels, in one form of editorial process or another. So I may be sporadic or the blog and twitter. Now, of course, I will pop in daily on Twitter probably, but if it takes a couple of hours or even a day or so to respond to a tweet or email, I haven't fallen off the earth or anything. Several books will be due or have deadlines all at one time and I need to finish writing Apollyon too. So I'm going to be a tad bit busy. 

But back to those  13 novels.  I do write fast--very fast in some instances, but not always. A lot of people think I kind of just sat down recently and started to write and spewed out about a 100 novels all at once. That's not how it happened. Some of those novels took years to find a home. Some took weeks or months. I thought it would be neat to share with you my time line as best as I can remember.

Almost all my novels are over 90k words, some around 105k to 108k  to give you idea of word countage.

Half-Blood--- I started and finished Half-Blood in 2007/2008 and in October 201o I received a contract from Spencer Hill on Half-Blood. So that baby had been written for quite some time.
Cursed-- I wrote Cursed will querying Half-Blood. I finished sometime in 2008/2009 and that found a home in Spring of 2011.
Unchained-- Unchained was written BEFORE Cursed. I finished that in the summer of 2009, I think, and that was contracted in July of 2011 with Entangled. A lot of people think the Adult series in new. It was actually my first contract with Entangled and has been in the works for several, several months. 
Obsidian--- Here's the extremely weird one. From conception to end of first draft took eight days in September 2011.  It was acquired by Entangled based on a partial.  My eight day novel writing skillz shall not ever be repeated.
Don't Look Back---I wrote that in November 2011 and that found a home w/ Disney in January 2012. 

See a trend here? Three novels were written, wow, years ago. All of those novels needed revisions and what not from the agent or the editors, but I've been writing a long, long time.

Let's look at sequels. (This is where I do typically write a bit faster, because I'm comfortable in the world).

Pure---Started in Nov 2010 and finished in January 2011
Deity--Started in May 2011 and finished around June 2011
Sequel to Unchained-- Started in July 2011 and finished in July 2011
Onyx--Started in October 2011 and finished in early November 2011.
Opal--Started in late December 2011 and hoping to finish early Feb 2012

And let's talk novellas....

Daimon--- For the life of me, I can't remember, but it was sometime in 2010/2011 I think.
Aiden's novella--started in early Decemeber 2011 and finished in December 2011
Shadows--- Pretty sure that was a December 2011 into January 2012 novella.

So I hope that shows that writing a book to when its pub'd can take a long time, and when you're out on submission, always be working on something else. Two books were written (and eventually sold) before my debut book was even picked up.

And now that I put that crazy schedule out there and dispelled rumors of me being some kind of mutant, X-Men writer, I am now off to finish Opal.

13 comments:

  1. Wow, that is just....so awesome! You sure do keep yourself bussssssy!

    Go do your thing so we can all read these books asap! ;)

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  2. Excellent post. Thanks for the insight :)

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  3. Jennifer you are full of awesome!! Keep up the awesome work!! Cant wait until I read all these books! :)

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  4. Jennifer you are amazing!! And your books are
    The love of my life! And I can't thank you and Enough
    For them! :)) I can't wait to read them all

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  5. I think you wrote DAIMON in Feb/March 2011, and we released it that May.

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  6. Sorry mutant girl- this confirms what I already knew about you! You write crazy fast and fabulously well! It's a good thing too because what else would I do if I didn't have your books to read?

    As busy as you are - I'm gonna have to keep bugging you. That pesky book tour won't go away - yet.

    Valerie
    StuckInBooks.com

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  7. Oh WOW! Congratulations on your 13th book! You are an amazing writer (one of my favorites now!!)! I can't wait to read more of your books!

    Karen @ I Read To Escape

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  8. 13 books....so far! You are an amazing writer. I have loved everything that has been published so far, don't think you could let me down. Only 15 days now until Shadows and at that time all other books will be set aside until I finish that!
    -Shellie
    Creative Reads

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  9. By now you should be done.... Good luck with it!

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  10. Wow! That is absolutely amazing. You are a writing machine! I am so excited to read all of your upcoming books. You are one of my favorite authors!!

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  11. Good Lord Woman! I say it again, you are on fire!

    Michelle:D

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