For the next ten weeks I’ll be working very hard on something I can’t tell you much about. It involves words, lots of them, and quilts and deadlines. But I can tell you about the process.
To folks who haven’t done it, writing a book seems like a magical thing. I still feel that way about fiction. Working with a publisher can provide terrific support, with guidelines, timelines, and intermediate deadlines.
Once a book proposal is accepted, an author is assigned a developmental editor who will guide her through the writing process. The editor can offer as much, or as little, help as the author needs.
It pays to be organized. I work with a ring binder, printing out pattern pages and first drafts. Words read differently to me on paper than on the computer screen. Starting from the table of contents, every day I fill in more and more words. Some days I take out more words than I put in, but that’s just part of the process of making sure that all the words are good ones.
For the projects, each is assigned one of my beloved Art Bins storage boxes. In each bin I store a copy of the pattern, the quilt in progress and enough extra fabric to create the step-out photos for the book. I write the pattern before I sew, which gives me a chance to proof and edit the pattern as I follow it.
So that the book will come out at Fall Market next year, I have agreed to some killer deadlines. In fact, the first one passed this week. I made it with two days to spare, a good sign. Some days I’ll be using the blog for “warm up” writing, so please forgive me if it gets a little goofy (or perhaps it already has).
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2011 at 7:02 am and is filed under writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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