The Logistics of Writing

I use a computer, currently a Compaq Pentium III, and I prefer the WordPerfect word-processing program because it's easiest at changing formatting and weird bugs. At school, though, I'm forced to use Word for Windows, so I'm ambiprogrammatic. I have written in longhand (I like long yellow legal pads best for this), on a portable typewriter, and (joy of joys!) on an IBM Selectric with the self-correcting option. I did my first "computer" novel on an old Apple IIE with the terrible Applewriter Program. As I recall, one book filled eight or nine floppy disks--about a chapter per disk. It's much easier today.

I don't have a set time to write, but I do try to produce a set amount: 4 pages per day. That's about 1000 words, and if I plug at it steadily, then I produce around 30 pages per week. I can do a whole first draft in six weeks. I do lots of revision and rewriting. During the school year I write a lot on weekends, but I try to do some every night, too. In the summer, I write as much as I want to. When I really like a story, I can burn right along. Once did a first draft for a non-Bellairs novel in eight days of practically nonstop writing. I rarely work on more than one book at once, though I'm doing so now: finishing up The Whistle, the Grave and the Ghost as I begin work on Pirate Hunter, a historical novel set in the 1680s.

I often caution, however, that what works for me as a writer will not work for everyone. As Rudyard Kipling observed, "There are nine-and-sixty ways / To perform the tribal lays / And every single one of them is right!" I firmly believe that a writer should find his or her best way of working and stick to that.

As for John, he was able to quit his day job -- but he had set aside some savings first. John did find it hard to live just as a writer; that's why he shifted to trying to write two books a year. One big problem for writers who do that, by the way, is that they are paid once every six months--it's hard to be disciplined enough to live on that.

One of my friends, whose sales were quite nice, decided to go full-time about ten years ago. He did it for a while, but he lacked the discipline I mentioned -- he'd be flush for two months, then, as he said, "living like a graduate student" (i.e. on the verge of starvation) for four. About three years ago, he broke down and went back to having a day job, just to tide him over between royalty statements.

The Publishing Process

The usual routine is that I will propose five or six possible plots. Usually it's by twos: two Lewis books, two Johnny books, and two Anthony books (hope never dies). The editor will pick out a couple and say, "These, but you have to make such-and-such a change." It might be, "Do the first Lewis book, but give Rose Rita a much larger part," or "Do the Dixon, but don't set it in Florida." We argue (in a good-natured way) back and forth over major points, then I go off and elaborate a chapter outline from my proposal (a proposal is about five hundred words of compressed plot; an outline is a ten to twenty page breakdown of the action into chapters). Usually I do not send the working outline in, but use it to write the first draft (actually by the time I've worked over it, it's the third).

I send that in, and in six months or so I get a raft of editorial requests: "You can't have the character smoking on page nine. We don't think that Rose Rita would wear a coonskin cap and a tutu on page fifty-one." Stuff like that. Some things I fight for if they're vital to the integrity of the character or the theme of the book; other things I compromise on. I tend to write long, so often the editor will cut paragraphs and I'll have to revise a bit to patch the cuts. (Sometimes this doesn't work very well; there's something fishy about the bikes in the cemetery scene of The Doom of the Haunted Opera that resulted from editorial transposition of paragraphs, for instance).

From there we go to page proofs. These are essentially the typeset but unbound pages of the books. Typically I get them on Wednesday and Dial needs them back no later than the following Monday. In other words, proofreading is always rushed. Always.

Some time after that, I'll get a color photocopy of the cover. And some months after that, the book comes out. It's a bit like the gestation period of elephants: you get all the trumpeting out of the way with the writing, and then it's nearly two years before the book is actually born.

The decision at Dial ultimately is an editorial agreement between the editor and me (and we're changing editors now), but lots of people have comments to make: the art department, marketing, the paperback folks -- it's a committee of a dozen or so, I'd guess, plus me. If people want to write and demand -- or politely requiest -- new Anthony Mondays, that's fine with me -- but don't address the letters to me, or the folks at Dial won't read them!

About the art: illustrations and such

Two things mitigated against my ever meeting Mr. Gorey face to face: he was very reclusive and publishers don't like their authors talking to their artists.

I think number two is because the art department wants complete control over the illustrations. Or I think they think we corrupt them or something. However, I did write to Mr. Gorey with every new book and heard back from him. In general, he liked my stuff. He thought one of them (I forget which) was the best-plotted of the series. In turn, I greatly admired his art, not least because alone of all the illustrators I had encountered to that time, he actually read the entire book before starting to work on the illustrations.

With a more recent (non-Bellairs) book of mine, the publisher asked me for a description of all the characters and a description of two or three scenes because "the artist we have in mind doesn't like to read."

I was happy with all the Gorey covers and never really disappointed with any of them. I was a little surprised at the colorful back cover for The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder because it was at such odds with the usual somber tones, but I liked it.

The only cover of any of my books that I've actively disliked was for Children of the Knife (a book for which the publisher also changed the title - mine was Silver Eyes). It was a horrid blue background with staring blank-eyed red children. I mean fire-engine red, cherry red. I never liked that cover....