Maxwell Smart asked Tricia O'Malley:

When you get an idea in your head for a new book. How long does it take from idea, to finished rough draft? What is your process to collect and organize?

Tricia O'Malley Hi Maxwell

That's a tricky question to answer because one of my top strengths is ideation. So, it isn't coming up with an idea so much as selecting which idea to follow through with. What I typically do is let the ideas come (always when I wake up at 3 am or in the shower or on a walk) and then I write them down and email them to myself. I put those in a folder in my email and revisit it periodically. However, if one idea keeps sticking, I know to elevate that higher on the list. From there, I take an idea and flesh it out lightly in an outline. Just dropping a few key plot points that I could see happening and how I would want the story to resolve. After that, I start to build out my characters and see how they bounce off each other. Once I start writing, I keep adding to my outline or changing things as I go. I look at the outline as a loose framework, and then I expand from there. The actual writing process takes the least amount of time once I get to that point - so typically a rough draft can be done in anywhere from a couple of weeks to two months depending on the story.

All the best

Tricia

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