When finished writing, how soon do you begin work on your next novel? Or do you work on several at once?
I usually have several in different stages of preparation, writing, editing, production, and promotion. At the moment I am: promoting Star Trek: Seekers #1, which just came out last Tuesday; overseeing final edits and tweaks on Section 31: Disavowed, which comes out in October; shopping around (via my agent) an original manuscript proposal that I hope will find a home so I can get paid to finish the manuscript after the holidays; writing a non-Star Trek tie-in novel that's due in mid-September; standing by to execute an approved outline for the next Seekers novel I'm going to write, and which is due in mid-December; and, working on proposals for two future projects (one of which is already under contract, one that I want to pitch).
See point two( at least to a certain degree), if I'm not mistaken . http://davidmack.pro/book_disavowed.html
^ Maybe. At least, part of it might be. And part of it might be something else entirely. Or not. Either-or. YMMV.
With the regards to the actual writing, I prefer to work on one book at time, but it seldom works out that way. At any given time, I'll usually have at least three projects at various stages of development: 1) An outline for the next book--to be written or awaiting approval. 2) The actual work-in-progress. 3) Revisions and edits on the previous work-in-progress, due out soon. In addition, I'm usually editing various projects for Tor and taking on assorted copywriting jobs on the side. Granted, upon finishing a book, I will usually take a few days off before starting the next one, just to clean my office, catch up with household matters, dentist appointments, and whatever else got put on the back burner during the final push on the book! I also find that I need a few days to recharge my batteries and mentally switch gears before moving onto another series or genre. (Right now, I'm gearing up to write an X-Files short story, so I'm watching a lot of the old episodes again and reading some of the earlier tie-ins.)
My answer is similar to Greg and Dave's -- I'm generally only writing one manuscript at a time, but a lot of projects are in the fire at once. Right now I've got the following going: promoting The Klingon Art of War prepping the promotion for Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution waiting for licensor notes on my Stargate SG-1 short story like Greg, I'm prepping for an X-Files story writing a V-Wars story (that's this week's primary task) writing the introductions for my upcoming short-story collection Without a License waiting for word on a grand total of a dozen novel pitches to three different publishers for five different licensed universes at some point soon I need to write Mermaid Precinct, but that depends on what I hear about those novel pitches (though one of them has been waiting for almost a year, so I'm not holding my breath) I think that's everything......
I wish I had nearly that many projects in the fire. I'm working on Uncertain Logic, I have a rough sketch of the outline for the following book and am giving some thought to it from time to time, I'm entertaining a vaguer idea for another Trek novel proposal that I hope I can make viable, and I have an unsold original story that I keep meaning to rework from scratch, but I won't be able to devote much thought to any of those until I'm done writing UL. Beyond that, I have a story for Buzzy Mag (an online SF/fantasy magazine) that I figure I'll be seeing galleys for at some point, and I have an original novel manuscript waiting for an editor to read it, and I've already finished all the revisions for DTI: The Collectors, and that's about it. When I'm immersed in one project, I can't really spare the attention for others. And I've never been good at shifting my attention at will. I tend to get fixated on one thing at a time for however long the fixation lasts.
Again, ditto what Dave, Greg & Keith said. I tend to work on one novel at a time, but I'll often be working on two different types of writing projects at once. Right now, I'm writing a novel and writing scripts for an unannounced videogame project. Aside from that, I'm doing promotion for my new 24 novel Deadline, shopping around an original thriller, and developing a bunch of outlines/pitches. Gotta keep swimmin'...
I work on one novel manuscript at a time, but (especially since I mainly write nonfiction these days) it actually works out to researching other things at the same time, as well as outlining and responding to feedback with edits...
Thanks for the reminder! And I'm being totally serious about that. Sometimes, when you have a tight deadline breathing down your neck, and you need to proofread those same damn pages one more time, and the check may or may not be in the mail, it's easy to forget how lucky we are to be able do this for a living. It's good to sit back and appreciate that for a minute . . . before diving back into work!
Not stupid at all. Besides writing my own books, I often write the cover copy for other people's books. You know, the stuff on the back covers of paperbacks or the inside flaps of hardovers: "The bestselling author of Mud-Pits of Lost Atlantis returns with another breathtaking adventure into the unknown, pitting Special Agent Mark Cosmos against a deadly new dimension of intergalactic peril . . . . " That kind of thing, which also sometimes includes press releases, catalog copy, scripts for radio commercials, etc. Advertising copy, basically. This has been a sideline of mine for decades now, ever since I used to write the cover copy for "adult" westerns back in the day: "Slocum rides shotgun with a whole passel of frolicsome fillies!"
I believe most of my colleagues who've responded thus far are full-time writers (or close enough that there's no distinction), but I have a day job that needs love and attention, so I don't ever have so many irons in the fire at once. After I handed in Light Fantastic, I started working on a new original project, but had to set that aside when an idea for a Trek story came to me. Now it's back to the original novel until I hear back from editorial about the pitch. I also need to get back to finding an agent (and, subsequently, publisher) for a completed original novel. Basically, I have poor hand-eye coordination and can only handle one ball in the air at a time...
When you get the final product delivered to you (the one you wrote ) do you read it as if someone else wrote it or do you just let it sit and collect mothballs?
I'm always very excited to receive the actual book, and run around town showing it off to all and sundry, but I seldom go back and re-read my old books except for research purposes. In general, by the time you've gone through multiple drafts of a manuscript, dealt with the copyedit, and proofread the uncorrected pages one last time, you never want to look at those words again! I put a copy on my brag shelf and mail a copy to my mom and get back to the next book . . ..