Deadlines, Disorder, and Denouement
Or, How I Wrote a Book in 60 Days and Lived to Tell the Tale
Publishing is an interesting storm of secrets.
Ask any author, and they’ll tell you the same: so much of our career is spent... not talking about our career. Contracts keep your mouth shut for months—or years—on end, until the clouds part one day and you’re finally given permission to spill (or you find out, unceremoniously, that your secret was revealed elsewhere without you being informed).
We call this being “vague”.
I’m vague. I’ve more or less been in a constant state of being vague on multiple fronts for the past 3 years. Right now, I’m harboring at least 3 secrets (which aren’t exactly well-kept, because I’m chatty). One of which is that I sold my third book in September. Yay!
(Like I said, not well kept).
Although I can’t reveal (yet) the premise of the book, I can share a few of the behind-the-scenes things occurring around it. So, lock in, because today we’re discussing selling a book on proposal, and all that entails.
Wait, proposal?
Yes! I’m fortunate enough to have an established relationship with my publisher, Peachtree Teen, which gives me the ability to sell books based on pitch rather than a completed manuscript. Although my debut VESUVIUS sold as a full draft, my second and third books (THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS and Mysterious Book Three) were sold on proposal.
In many ways, selling on proposal is a relief because it’s guaranteed money upfront before ever doing substantial drafting. It’s far less risky vs. going on traditional submission, where a finished manuscript may not sell. But it also can be harder on the author, as once the offer is made on a pitch, we then have a limited timeframe to turn that pitch into a completed draft.
For a notoriously slow drafter (like me)...
It’s a lot of pressure.
How long an author is given to create that first draft is publisher dependent. Some are given twelve weeks, some six months or more.
For me, for book three?
60 days.
I was given 60 days—from roughly the beginning of September to the first of November—to take my pitch and turn it into a completed draft.
Caveat: even my pitch for THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS wasn’t put on such a tight turnaround. The reason Mysterious Book Three was needed so soon is because... it’s a secret! Sorry.
When my editor gave me the greenlight to start writing, I knew I would need to approach this draft in an entirely different way than my previous books to get it out the door in time.
Here’s how I did it.
Stage directions.
There are pieces of drafting that come easier to me than others—dialogue and interiority, namely. I can write dialogue exchanges in draft one that survive until the final product. Action sequences, on the other hand? It’s like pulling teeth to get them on the page at first. For Mysterious Book Three, when I found myself stalling, or inserting too many (insert action sequence later)s, I had the revelation that I could simply... insert it all later.
By this I mean I discovered the benefits of doing a blocking draft—or, as some writers call it, a draft zero. I spent 2 weeks of my 60 days working through the book scene-by-scene literally just laying out the foundation of what each chapter needed to accomplish. In many ways, it resembled an extended outline, or a script with stage directions, more than a book. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t readable. But it gave me the frame I could then build my prose around.
Once I had the barebones of the manuscript, I felt far more confident.
Fired my inner editor.
It doesn’t have to be good, it just needs to exist. This became my driving mantra for the remaining days, when I was actually drafting prose. Part of why I’ve been such a slow drafter in the past is because I labor over my first draft. I operate under a perfectionist mindset where if it isn’t done right the first time, don’t bother doing it at all.
But that isn’t how writing needs to be. I’ve found, over the course of publishing my debut and working on subsequent novels with my agents and editor, that I shine during revision. There is no award for having the most special, most perfect first draft (because such a thing literally does not exist).
This draft taught me so much about the joy in just... writing. Yes, I was under pressure. Yes, I was fighting against the clock. But the more I let go of control, the more fun I had in simply experimenting. My editor trusts me, and I trust her, and I knew that at the end of the day, she’d still see the heart of the book.
Everything else can be fixed in post.Paced myself.
I discovered early on in the drafting process that setting a hard daily word-count was not going to work for me. It gave me too much leeway to hit my daily 2k then call it a night when I easily could’ve kept going (I am not that disciplined). Instead, I broke the book into scenes and set a goal of finishing at least one scene per weekday and two on weekends. Mysterious Book Three had around 45 scenes across its 20-something chapters, so this worked really well for me.
For others, a daily word count goal might be perfect. Or breaking it into chapters, instead of scenes. I’m not your dad. You figure out what works for you, stay accountable, and commit.Learned the hard way why I need to prioritize routine.
This deadline came during a bizarre season of change for me. Not only was I given the greenlight while still recovering from top surgery (as in, still in a compression vest 24/7, still unable to raise my elbows), but my literary agent of nearly 3 years let me know she was leaving the industry. That meant, while Mysterious Book Three was still in acquisitions pending an offer, I had to query for a new agent.
Read how that went here:
Listen, I don’t cope with change very well. As a neurodivergent person—and especially as someone with borderline personality disorder—routine and stability are everything to me. Between August and November, at every turn it felt like things were breaking down, and my mental health nosedived. I became reclusive, dedicating all my free time to drafting, and my relationships struggled because of it. My full-time day job (which I love) thrust new responsibilities on me, my dogs kept getting sick, and the most I could do between work and writing was go for a run.
The draft has been turned in since November 1st, and to tell you the truth, I’m still burnt out.
But I learned a lot about what I need during this era. Now, I better understand what I could do differently: setting daily goals, asking for accountability from my friends and partner (not just for wordcount, but to ensure I’m touching grass, too), and making sure I don’t neglect my health.
(If you’re reading this and you felt personally neglected by me between September 1st and November 1st, 2025, you may be entitled to financial compensation).
So, now what?
The draft is done. I’m a better writer for it, and I don’t regret it. In two months, I feel like I’ve learned more about myself as an author than in the past three years.
But I won’t deny that it was brutal. Essentially, it was like doing two NaNoWriMos (rest in pieces) back-to-back. And this book is emotionally taxing for me, drawing on parts of my own experiences that I’ve never put to page before. Reliving some of my worst memories through projecting them onto fictional boys night after night with very few breaks was draining.
Since turning in the draft, for the first time since 2020, I took a break.
A three-week break. Reader, I have not written a single word. It’s been incredible. I’m spending time outside my house, I’m reading for fun, I’m training for my first 5k race, I’m sewing, I’m catching up on stuff I owe others.
I’ll be getting edits back from my publisher here soon, and it’ll be back to the grind, but I’m actually… not dreading it?
And hopefully—by the next time I update my newsletter—I’ll finally get to be un-vague about what Mysterious Book Three is.
hey, being able to go for a run is a big deal! congrats on getting through everything 💕