Valerie Biel on Writing a Book in 47 Days

She's overthinking everything lately, mostly because wrangling a book from first pages to rough draft in 47 writing days is HARD. Partly due to “Monkey-Monkey-Underpants” syndrome~explanation below!

Valerie Biel is the author of the Circle of Nine series (with Book Four coming out soon. She promises). You can visit the Blackbird Writers site to find out more about her by clicking here and buy her books here.

With that brief description, you’re probably wondering whether you should keep reading or not – so congratulations, brave soul, for making it this far.

Some background for context:

· I’ve promised to have a new book available for a special event in August. (And this book is the long-awaited book four in the Circle of Nine series—so there’s an extra layer of guilt for how long fans have waited for this one.)

· I’m an indie author—meaning I manage or ‘do’ all the publishing tasks myself. I know how much time I need for all of those, and it’s substantial.

· Sitting down to write this book with that kind of deadline creates a pressure that is both good and bad. Toxic trait = I work well under pressure when I desperately do not want to disappoint anyone. Work well = subjective phrase that means different things on different days.

· But it’s all about Monkey-monkey-underpants. It’s a Gilmore Girls thing, in which Lorelai explains all the different spirals and turns and directions her brain is running around in while trying to sit down and write. To watch click here or on the image below.

Add to that the usual distractions and responsibilities, and I was starting to sweat the completion of this book. You know how “important” things get in the way, like watching social media videos, doom-scrolling political atrocities, reading books, watching TV, playing games on my phone. (ha ha) Or the truly important things like travel, house projects, hanging out with family—oh, and real work—the kind I’m paid to do.

NOTE TO SELF: This might be a good time to revisit my word of the year: TANGIBLE.

But even battling my bouncy brain and my distractible habits, I did it. I now have a rough draft that I’m currently editing. It’s about 77,000 words . . . entitled Circle of Nine: Mercy in the Mist.

And my current opinion is that “it doesn’t suck.” (Now, if you ask me tomorrow, I might give you a different answer, but other writers will understand that vacillation.)

So how did I write a book in 47 writing days? (Writing days = days when I wrote, not consecutive days.)

1) I blocked out time on my calendar so I wouldn’t schedule anything else during writing time.

2) I set aside the idea that I needed long chunks of time available to make progress on the story and embraced whatever time I had available in my schedule for writing.

3) I put my phone on silent and put it in a different room.

4) I turned off my social media notifications on my computer.

5) I put my pantser-self in timeout and embraced my alter ego, who outlines the book plot. (Phew—that one was hard, but necessary.)

6) I used my nifty second monitor (thank you dear husband for that gift) and put other docs on display at the ready, including the contents of all three previous books (so I could search for pesky details), the spreadsheet of character info, a special note doc about subplots that ‘could’ be included in book 4, and the ‘rules of magic’ doc for the Circle of Nine world.

7) I wrote first thing in the morning whenever I could—versus getting sucked into other projects.

8) I allowed myself to garbage write at times . . . garbage writing = writing out the scenes in your head very quickly with no worry about dialogue attributions and punctuation/grammar conventions. In my opinion, it’s easier to edit this than to write cautiously and perhaps lose that thread for the great scene you’re imagining.

9) When I came to a spot where I needed to go back and either weave in a new plot point or research something from a previous book or something new online, I didn’t let that hinder my momentum. Instead, I typed [FIX – with the thing that needs fixing described.] This way, I could easily search for those spots later. (I know a lot of writers do something of this type in their manuscripts!)

10) I created a production schedule, so I knew my absolute ‘drop dead’ date to have the book ready for beta readers. (AND that date is fast-approaching, so it’s back to editing for me!)

I find it amazing that there are some authors who write multiple books a year. I’m talking about those who put out 4-5-6 or more titles. I’m in awe of that kind of motivation and workflow persistence.

If you’re an author reading this, please let me know what tips you have for sticking to your writing schedule. For readers (who may or may not be authors as well), I’m curious if you’re invested in a series, is one new book a year far too slow for your reading pleasure?

Yours truly, in writing solidarity “monkey-monkey-underpants,” ~ Valerie

Valerie Biel is the author of the award-winning Circle of Nine series (stories inspired by Celtic mythology and the stone circles of Ireland) and the award-winning mystery, Beyond the Cemetery Gate. Her love for travel and insatiable curiosity fuel her storytelling. When she’s not writing, she’s helping other authors with their publishing adventures and wrangling her overgrown garden. Her website is www.valeriebiel.com. You can read her latest post for the Blackbird Writers here and buy her books here.