SFFMP 106: Writing a Novel in Five Days with Scott King

November 8, 2016 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Since it’s NaNoWriMo month, we invited Scott King to talk about how he wrote a novel in five days (and then wrote a book about how he did it, also in five days). In addition to holding down a day job as a board game photographer, Scott is the author of several middle grade fantasy novels, a thriller, and a couple of non-fiction titles, including this newest one. We asked him what his process was for writing the novel in five days and tried to milk some tips out of him too.

Some details of what we covered:

What’s the state of the middle grade fiction market when it comes to self-publishing and ebooks?
Why Scott shifted to adult epic fantasy and thrillers.
Whether outlining is important when writing a novel quickly.
Staying excited when you’re struggling to get past the middle point of the novel.
Getting in the habit of finishing projects.
How you optimize your workflow to be more efficient.
Whether mindset matters when it comes to writing and finishing novels.
How much of Scott’s five days go to prep and revision.
How long it takes to refill the creative tank after writing a novel so quickly.
How to keep novels shorter and simpler to make them easier to finish (and why you might want to, even you epic fantasy folks).
Dealing with distractions and writers’ block.
Some of the challenges of genre hopping.