TheCO: What does a "typical" writing day look like for you?

LMB:I don't write every day. I spend some days or weeks on the less visible "pre-writing" phase, getting my ideas in order and captured in a notebook. I work on a book in small sections, in chronological order. I can plot out a section, which may be one or several chapters, then figure out what scenes go in the next chapter, then take each scene and think about and visualize it and, eventually, scribble something between an outline and a first draft in pencil. I choreograph my dialogue very closely—script it—in pencil before attempting to type it. I take these notes, scene by scene, to the computer to turn into the "first" draft. Once I have a chapter assembled in my head, the writing usually goes quickly and intensely, and the chapter will fall out in two to five days. This empties the buffers—when I get it written down I can stop remembering it, always a great relief—and makes room in my limited brain space for the next bit. Then there will be another long apparent pause while the next wodge forms up. Long walks are very good for this part of the process.

TheCO: How do you do your editing? Is this an all-at-once process? Line by line as you write?

LMB: Structural editing almost all takes place at the outline stage, as I shove the scene sequences around and at last into place. Very seldom do I add or delete whole scenes after the first draft. When I complete a day's work I usually print it out and take the pages away to read in the new format (in a different room and chair, which my body desperately needs by that point), and mark it up with line edit and copy edit stuff—fixing syntax, improving word choice, adding some forgotten bit or cutting something excess that impedes the flow. At the end of the chapter, it goes out (by e-mail, now) to my inner circle of test readers; when they return their comments, I enter changes as I judge useful, and print out the chapter that goes into the accumulating three-ring binder. I look back over this material fairly frequently as I continue to write, and mark up any problems that catch my eye. At the end of the book comes the vast appalling task of going back over the whole thing, and making all necessary changes on all levels. I enter all these, print it out again, read it again, make any other changes that seem required (by this time I'm cross-eyed and thoroughly sick of it all), and produce the first submission draft, which goes to the editor. She returns her comments, I make what responses I'm going to, and back it goes to the publisher. After that there will be the copy edit to read and approve or fix, and finally, the galleys.