Notes on the Writing of At First Sight

I started the novel in the last week of February 2005, and completed the first draft in early June. In between, I went on a three week U.S. book tour, spent another nine days on a book tour in England and Ireland, went to Disneyworld for five days, and spent three days in New York. Keep in mind that after each of those trips, it usually takes two or three days to catch up in my office, and it's important to my wife (and me) that I spend the weekends with my family. While I made a promise to myself after my trip around the world that I would slow down, I had to put that promise aside to finish the novel. It was a pressure-packed three months.

Fortunately, as far as the writing went, I had a couple of things going for me heading into the project. First, I knew the characters and the setting, I knew the character's voices and the way they talked, I had all the relationships and back-stories worked out and I already had part of the ending completed (all wonderful left-overs from True Believer). Yet, because of my deadline, I knew I wouldn't have time to make mistakes, so I spent the first week writing a detailed, forty page outline. I wanted to know exactly what was happening chapter by chapter, and within the chapters as well. I don't usually do outlines, but after this, I think I might change my mind. It did make the writing go much more smoothly.

Strange, but as difficult as True Believer was to write, the writing of At First Sight proceeded relatively smoothly. I worked four to five days a week, putting out 8,000-10,000 words or so. Still, it was difficult to get into a rhythm, since I was forced to travel so much. I would work for two weeks, travel for three weeks, work for a week, travel for a week, work for two weeks, travel for a week. . . work for three days, gone for three days. . . despite the steady progress, I found myself wishing that I could simply strap myself into my chair so I could finish the novel in one fell swoop.

I suppose that this novel would fall into the easy-to-write or medium-to-write category. While I found it difficult to escape the pressure of the ever-encroaching deadline the novel was completed in about ten weeks (Spread out over four months). Still, because I'd taken no break between True Believer and At First Sight, I had more than a couple of days where I threw myself an old-fashioned temper tantrum. I'll be honest; I don't like deadlines, even when they're self-imposed. Still, I was thrilled with the final product.

The editing on the novel was simple: the first draft came in relatively close to the final product. As is typical, we ended up cutting 15% of the novel. I'm more than happy to cut, since it helps to keep the pages turning, and in the end, it's the mark of efficient writing. The most challenging part of the editing process was the timeline: the novel covers a ten month period, so I had to note every instance in the novel where I wrote something like, "a week later," or "as June approached." Because of the outline, it had come in fairly accurate, but I was glad I went over it.

On an, "I betcha didn't know this!" note: I suppose I should admit that I have a tendency to use some words more than others. I think all writers are this way, since everyone is a creature of habit and usually it's not a problem as long as you fix them before the final version is published. Since I know what words I tend to overuse (no, I won't tell you which ones they are), I simply run a computer search for them, then delete them wherever I can. In this book, there were fourteen words I focused on -- and wow, I really overused a couple!. I made the necessary deletions, and I'm hopeful that you won't be able to figure out what the original words were.