I’ve Learned not to Judge Other Authors on Delays

This link says what I'm trying to say here.

https://bookeditor-jessihoffman.com/authors-dont-rush-edit/

I now realize where certain authors are coming from as far as releasing the next book is concerned.

But you’ll have angry readers who don’t accept that not everything can be right on time, and it hurts the author/reader dynamic sometimes.

Murakami says he takes many weeks away from the manuscript before editing the work to polish it up a bit. It is only after many careful passes and the careful eyes of his wife that he moves forward with a project.

Rothfuss swears up and down he is working on the third book, and you know what?

I believe him. His prose is on another level, so I give him the benefit of the doubt because it’s taken over fifteen years on the third book. Incidentally, he wrote his first book after fifteen years of rewrites.

While it may seem like a self-insert protagonist being awesome, his novels are well-written works.

Nobody can argue that “A Silence of Three Parts” is not one of the most beautiful sets of words ever put to the page in the English language.

I believe no one wants to release the third book as much as he does.

If an author is following the pulp paradigm, then it only makes sense to release books as fast as humanly possible. But in doing so, the project will be half-baked and not up to the correct standard for those of us who believe in the words themselves.

There’s nothing wrong with being early to release a book, but there is also nothing wrong in deciding to take some more time on the prose. Think of it like the military concept of being on time as being early to the event, and being late as on time in the normal sense.

Writers like Martin and Rothfuss are busy with other things, and it cannot be helped.

If you take on a certain amount of other work, then you’ll have some conflicts in your schedule that might delay the release of a novel.

Being frank, dictation is the reason my novels take a while to edit sometimes. For example, I wrote much of The Symphonist by speaking it into existence. Dictation saves time and word count, but also comes with the cost of careful editing.

That’s how it’s been with Crown of the Orphic Queen. I dictated some parts of it, which led to cleanup in the later versions of the story to such an extent that you might consider it a full rewrite.

It saves time and increases word count per day, but you sacrifice legible words doing it that way.

I’d love to be fifteen to thirty minutes early for my novel appointment.

But sometimes you have to be late on purpose to write the best book possible.

Please be patient as I sort this out, and I promise a tale that is out-of-this-world awesome!

I’m trying to get it out by next week, but since my pace is two-four novels a year now, I don’t know how much that date will mean anything.

Like Martin and Rothfuss, sometimes we have other work that gets in the way and we can’t skip THOSE deadlines.

But that’s the thing. We’re doing our best to get our stories out into the world, so Rothfuss and Martin are likely taking things in stride.

We must have a bit of grace there, if I’m being completely transparent.

I identify with these writers due to the focus on craft itself, not just churning words out. Give them some slack because of other engagements. A turtle’s crawl still makes it to the finish line in time.

We just want our words out there in the way we want them to be out there.

As the legendary Miyamoto once said, “A rushed [BLANK] is bad forever.” I’m taking some liberties with that statement, but it’s true.

So, Q3 and Q4 it is.

But the wait is worth it, in my humble opinion.

Happy writing!