My Writing Process: From Idea to Published Novel

People ask how a book gets written. The honest answer is: slowly, then all at once, then slowly again. My process is not the one I recommend to anyone else, because every writer has to find their own. But for those curious about how the books on the books page came to be, here is the real version.

Where ideas come from

Ideas do not arrive fully formed. They arrive as fragments, a line of dialogue overheard in a coffee shop, a house seen from a passing train that I cannot stop thinking about, a question that has no answer. A single image or sentence that will not leave.

Most fragments go nowhere. They sit in a notebook and never become anything. But some of them stick. They keep returning. They connect to other fragments and start to form a shape. That shape is the beginning of a book.

I do not start with a plot. I start with a feeling, the emotional terrain of the story, the thing I want the reader to feel. The plot comes later, built to serve the feeling, not the other way around.

The notebook stage

Before a word of the novel is written, there are notebooks. I fill them with observations, character sketches, scenes that may or may not make it into the book, questions I am trying to answer. This stage can take months. It looks like nothing is happening, but the story is forming underground.

This is the most important part of my process and the hardest to explain, because it is invisible. Nothing is being written. Everything is being thought. The notebook is where the story finds its weight before it finds its words.

The first draft

The first draft is where the story meets the page for the first time. I write it fast. The goal is not quality, it is completion. A bad completed draft can be fixed. A perfect half-finished draft cannot.

I write in the mornings, when the house is quiet and the day has not yet accumulated enough noise to crowd out the voice of the story. I aim for a certain number of words per day, not because the number matters, but because the discipline of showing up every day keeps the story alive in my head.

The first draft is messy. Characters change halfway through. Scenes that seemed important turn out to be unnecessary. The ending I planned does not work, and the real ending emerges from somewhere I did not expect. This is normal. This is what a first draft is for, finding out what the story is.

The second draft

The second draft is where the book becomes a book. I read the first draft as a stranger would, not the person who wrote it, but a reader encountering it for the first time. What does this reader understand? Where are they bored? Where do they lose the thread? Where do they not feel what I intended them to feel?

The second draft fixes structure. Scenes are moved. Chapters are reorganised. Characters who started strong and faded are given more to do. Subplots that went nowhere are cut. The middle of the book, which is always the hardest part, is rebuilt to carry the weight it needs to.

This draft takes longer than the first. The first draft is writing. The second draft is rewriting, which is a different skill and a slower one.

The third draft

The third draft is where the line-by-line work happens. This is the draft where I read every sentence and ask: does this earn its place? Is there a better word? Is this clear without being flat? Is the rhythm right?

This is the draft that most people never see, the one where the prose is shaped. It is painstaking and slow and it is the most satisfying part of the process, because this is where the book stops being a draft and starts being a piece of writing.

Editing and feedback

After the third draft, the book goes to an editor. This is not optional. No writer can see their own work clearly enough to edit it properly. An editor reads what is there, not what I think I wrote, and the gap between those two things is where the best improvements come from.

I also share the manuscript with a small group of trusted readers, not writers, but readers. They tell me what they actually felt, not what they think I want to hear. Their honesty is worth more than any amount of self-editing.

The edits that come back are humbling. There are always things I missed, always scenes that work in my head but not on the page, always moments where I was too close to see the problem. The editing process is about letting go of the version of the book I thought I was writing and accepting the version it actually is.

Publication

The final manuscript goes to the publisher, or to self-publishing if that is the path for this book. Formatting, cover design, the business side of publishing, these are separate from writing, and they deserve their own attention. The book on the page is done. The book as a product is just beginning.

If you want to see what this process produced, the books page has them all.

What I have learned

The most important thing I have learned about writing is this: the book you end up with is never the book you started. It is better, or it is different, or it is something you did not know you were capable of. The process is not about executing a plan. It is about discovering what the story wants to be, and having the patience to let it tell you.

FAQ

How long does it take to write a novel?
From first fragment to finished manuscript, typically 12-18 months. The notebook stage takes months. The first draft takes 3-4 months. The second and third drafts take another 3-6 months. Editing and revisions add more. Some books take longer, the ones that fight back.

Do you outline before writing?
Not in detail. I know where the story starts and roughly where it ends. The middle is discovered during the writing. This means drafts are messier, but it also means the characters can surprise me, which is the only reason to write fiction.

How do you deal with writer’s block?
I do not believe in writer’s block. I believe in being stuck, which is different. Being stuck means the story needs something I have not figured out yet. The answer is to stop writing and start thinking, go back to the notebook, walk, read something unrelated. The stuckness is the story telling you it needs more time, not that you need more discipline.

Where can I read Michelle Hay’s books?
The books page has the full list with descriptions and links to purchase.