the secret life of miss mary bennet Archives

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Hours Spent Writing Per Month in 2022. January: 103 hours 39 minutes. February: 80 hours 59 minutes. March: 84 hours 4 minutes. April: 58 hours 12 minutes. May: 108 hours 44 minutes. June 66 hours 52 minutes. July 57 hours 21 minutes. August: 47 hours 30 minutes. September: 108 hours 49 minutes. October: 93 hours 28 minutes. November: 77 hours 5 minutes. December: 49 hours 58 minutes.

Big Mary Bennet Energy: 2022, A Year in Review

December 31, 2022/1 Comment/in Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, Updates, Year in Review /by Katherine Cowley

And now, as we reach the final day of 2022, it is time for my annual writing year in review.

I spent 937 hours writing in 2022, and my year looks like a series of waves.

Due to a variety of outside factors, my writing time varied from 47 to 109 hours each month, but it did so in an aesthetically pleasing way, which is definitely a win.

(Note: 937 hours is less time than I spent writing in 2021, when I wrote for 1000 hours, but more than I spent writing in any previous year.)

Which leads us to the next chart: how did I spend my time?

Hours Spent Per Writing Project in 2022. Website, Guest Posts, Book Launches, Presentations, Marketing 309 New Murder Mystery 227 Development 148 Board of Directors for Writing Nonprofit 75.5 Jane Austen Writing Lessons 54.5 Journal Writing 49 Mary Bennet Book 3 32 Novel I'm abandoning 24 Other 18

This year had big Mary Bennet energy, and that determined a lot of my writing hours. True, I only spent 32 hours doing final revisions on my third Mary Bennet novel. But the second and third books in the Mary Bennet spy series were both released:

The True Confessions of a London Spy in March 2022

The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception in September 2022

Katherine Cowley at This is a Bookstore/Bookbug with Ladys Guide to Death and Deception

I had my launch party for The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception at This is a Bookstore/Bookbug in Kalamazoo, MI.

It was exciting to have these books released in close proximity, because then readers could enjoy the full story arc without having to wait very long. As you’d expect, two book releases takes up a lot of time, and I spent 309 hours on everything from my website to guest blog posts to presentations to marketing tasks.

This year was also thrilling for the first book in the series, The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, which had several award wins and nominations:

-Winner of the LDSPMA Praiseworthy Award for Best Suspense/Mystery novel

-One of five nominees for the Mary Higgins Clark Award

At the Edgar Awards: me with three of the other finalists for the Mary Higgins Clark Award

-One of five finalists for the Whitney Award for Best Mystery/Suspense novel

The Big Question: Will we see more of Mary Bennet?

I have had so many readers finish the third book and ask, “Will we see more of Mary Bennet?” Others have asked if I will write a Kitty Bennet series.

The series was originally conceived as a trilogy. I wanted it to feel complete and have a satisfying resolution for Mary (and company) by the end of the third book.

However, there are other stories that I would love to tell about Mary and her sisters. So I think it’s fair to say that there will very likely be more books in Mary and/or Kitty’s futures.

That said, I have been working on this series non-stop from 2017 to 2022. Five full years. That’s a lot of time to spend in one story world, with one set of characters. A book takes me at least a year or two to write, and it’s very all-consuming. So I decided that the time had come to work on a brand new murder mystery.

The New Murder Mystery:

I’m still keeping this largely under wraps, but I will say that my new murder mystery is set in Paris in the late 1800s, with a number of fascinating historical figures. The main character of the book is a determined woman in her thirties trying to make her way in the world. But then there is a theft and a murder, and she is drawn into solving the mystery.

I spent 227 hours on this book in 2022. While I had to do a lot of research for the Mary Bennet novels, I already had a strong background on Jane Austen and Regency England. I did not have that same background for my new murder mystery, so I’ve had to do a lot of additional research on everything from politics to architecture. Fortunately, I love research. One thing I didn’t count towards writing time was studying French. I’m fluent in Portuguese, and reading Portuguese definitely helps with reading French, but knew I needed to study French itself to help me read some of the sources (including newspapers and a few biographies) that are only available in French.

A few of the research books I’ve read for my current novel

While I love research, one cannot research forever. One of the things that I am most happy about for this year is that I found my main character’s voice, I found my narrator voice, and I found the voices of many of my other characters.

I’m now at the 60% mark on the first draft. In the new year, I plan to finish the first draft and then revise, revise, revise.

What Else Counted as Writing:

There are endless other things that counted as writing this year, but here’s a few of note:

-Choosing out formal gowns. I rented dresses for both the Edgar Awards and the Whitney Awards, and I definitely counted the dress search as writing time. (Under my Development category, which includes all writing and career development.)

Katherine Cowley in her dress for the Whitney Awards

My dress for the Whitney Awards. Both my dress for the Edgars and the Whitneys were from Rent the Runway.

-I ran a successful Kickstarter for a writing nonprofit and helped publish an anthology.

-I abandoned a novel. I went back and began another revision on an old mystery novel I wrote in the mid-2010s. And then I decided it’s not the right book, so I am officially abandoning it. We’re all better off.

-I wrote 17 new Jane Austen Writing Lessons, focusing on what Jane Austen can teach us about writing dialogue and writing emotions.

-I worked on a few short stories. And I had two short stories published, both with a bit of a religious bent: “The Gift of Undoing” in Saints, Spells, and Spaceships, and the darkest story I’ve ever written, “Burdens,” in Irreantum.

My Writing Plans for 2023:

I have a number of goals, including setting up bookstore and library visits (note: if you’re a bookseller or librarian, I am available for both in-person and virtual visits).

Mostly though, I’m going to buckle down and write, so you can read more of my short stories and novels in the future.

The Original Title for The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception

October 10, 2022/1 Comment/in Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet /by Katherine Cowley

I told this story at my launch party in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but I wanted to share it here. The original, working title for The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception was The Lady’s Guide to the Art of War.

In late 2019, my agent Stephany Evans was preparing submission materials for the first book in the series, The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet. Now, when you are pitching a book, even if you would like it to be the first book in a series, you often say, “It’s a standalone novel with series potential.” Publishers sometimes just want one book, and you want them to be interested in the book without them feeling like the book is incomplete and requires a series. And indeed, the first book does stand on its own. But “series potential” means you have further books in mind. In case a publisher was interested in the sequels, Stephany asked me to create a several sentence pitch—with a title—for books 2 and 3.

I had already written a first draft for the second book, which made it much easier to settle on possible titles. After a bit of brainstorming, I ended up settling with The True Confessions of a London Spy, which ultimately ended up being the final title for the book.

Book three was trickier. I knew that it would be set in Brussels. I knew that the book would include Napoleon Bonaparte and the hundred days from when he escaped the Isle of Elba and was defeated one final time. I also knew the book would include a romance, and feature Mary’s sister Lydia. I had enough that I could write a pitch. One of the themes that I knew would be present in the book was war—how war impacts individuals and communities. War is played out not just on the battlefield, but in smaller interactions with huge consequences. And so I came up with the title, The Lady’s Guide to the Art of War.

I have a history with the book The Art of War. We had a copy in my house growing up, and we would discuss Sun Tzu and other military theorists at the dinner table or after watching movies. I got engaged to my husband, Scott, a few weeks before Christmas, and for Christmas that year, my dad gave Scott a beautiful knife from Spain and a copy of The Art of War. Which from my dad is a very excited “Welcome to the family!”

When I got to writing the book, I didn’t draw upon The Art of War as heavily as I thought I would. Its influence is definitely in the book, and Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington likely owned copies and would’ve been quite familiar with it. Mary and Mr. Withrow do discuss The Art of War in one scene, but I realized that it wasn’t quite the right title for the overall themes and focus.

So it was back to the drawing board. I spent hours brainstorming other titles, and after some really useful thoughts and perspectives from my editor, I settled on The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception. What I loved about the title is it captures what Mary must face—deception on the part of others, and the deception she must use in order to unravel the mystery and deal with death. I sent the title in, it was approved by the publisher, and it became the final title for the book.

The book is dedicated to my dad, and despite not including The Art of War in the title, it has a lot of his influence. He helped me choreograph every single action scene in the entire series. I would video call him and say, “I need these things to happen, without these things happening, and this is who the characters are and their skills and strengths,” and he would help me figure it out. After I wrote the scenes, I would send them to him for further feedback.

Titles tend to either come to me easily or they are really difficult and take a lot of work. There is no in-between. But I have been really happy with all my titles so far, and hopefully that’s the case in the future!

The complete series: The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, The True Confessions of a London Spy, The Lady's Guide to Death and Deception

How Many Hours It Takes Me to Write a Book

May 26, 2022/2 Comments/in Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, Updates, Writing /by Katherine Cowley

On one of my blog posts recapping a year in writing, a reader recently asked how long it takes me to write a novel, and how this time breaks down between drafting and revision.

Because I track my writing time, I can answer both questions rather easily.

Question 1: Total Number of Hours to Write A Novel

For the past three novels I have written, it has taken me between 400 and 650 hours to write and revise the book.

The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet: 612.5 hours; The True Confessions of a London Spy: 464 hours. The Lady's Guide to Death and Deception: 408 hours

Question 2: The Time Breakdown (How these hours were spent)

This question gets a little more complicated, because I wrote the first drafts for The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet and The True Confessions of a London Spy at the same time. However, I went back through my time tracking app, did some number crunching, and broke things out.

Disclaimer: I came up with the premise for the series in 2013, and I did some initial research, and then spent years thinking about the characters and their motivations, daydreaming about scenes, planning emotional arcs, etc. None of this time is included in the following charts, which only include time spent after mid-2017.

Disclaimer 2: rounding occurred at various points when I exported from my time tracking app and then added numbers in Excel. If the numbers are off by an hour or two, then it’s because you’re not seeing all the rounding.

Time Spent Writing and Revising The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet

Research
Outlining
Draft 1
Draft 2
Draft 3
Newspaper Research
Draft 4
Draft 5
Draft 6 (with agent)
Draft 7 (with agent)
Revisions with Publisher
Other Tasks

76 hours
34 hours
113 hours
88.5 hours
108 hours
18 hours
6 hours
14.5 hours
77.5 hours
17 hours
33 hours
27 hours

Note: the first draft, which took me 113 hours, was spread out (along with research and outlining) over a period of 11 months. This was a novel that took time to simmer and develop!

What each draft focused on

First draft: The first draft is for me to get the story down. I do revise some as I go, but I also leave plenty of comments for myself for things to fix later. Sometimes I will skip scenes or chapters that I know I will need to add in a future draft, and I am often missing names for key characters (I’ll have lots of _________ to show that I need to add it later). I never show full first drafts to anyone, but I did show bits and pieces to my monthly writing group to get some initial feedback.

Second draft: This draft is the get-it-ready-to-look-at by other people draft. I fill in whatever gaps are left from the first draft, do lots of big picture changes (plot, structure, emotion, relationships, and character), and constantly tweak things at a language and sentence level.

Then I sent the book to my first round of critique partners.

Third draft: Some people break out different types of edits (structural, character, language) into different drafts. I kind of do them all at once. First I created a very large chart on my wall which helped me figure out how to fix bigger picture plot and character problems, and then I dove into changes. For me, a draft sometimes consists of multiple passes–during a single revision, I may go through chapters anywhere from 1 to 4 times, and sometimes I’ll be revising a later chapter and realize I need to go back and change something in a previous chapter that I thought was finished. I decide a draft is finished when I’ve taken care of all the things that seem most crucial–that are really bothering me. I won’t necessarily address every single thing my critique partners have suggested; some I do save for future revisions, and others I set aside and don’t incorporate.

I then added newspaper headings and sent the book to a new set of critique partners. (I like to use people who haven’t yet read the novel and can offer a fresh perspective.) In this case, draft four did not take very long, and then I started querying agents. Then I did another draft and queried more. Then I got my agent–and I wrote a post that talks about the revisions that I did with my agent.

Once the book was acquired by Tule, we did a content edit, another more minor content edit, an edit to make the book shorter, and then copyedits and proofreads.

Time Spent Writing and Revising The True Confessions of a London Spy

Research
Outlining
Draft 1
Draft 2
Draft 3
Newspaper Research
Draft 4
Draft 5
Revisions with Publisher
Other Tasks

67 hours
9 hours
48 hours
149.5 hours
11.5 hours
19 hours
71 hours
48 hours
35.5 hours
5 hours

You will notice that I spent a lot less time on this first draft. However, I paid for it during the second draft, which still holds its winning place as the hardest draft I have ever written in my life.

The drafting process was similar to the first book, however, because the second draft was such a major revision, in this case I did a quick third draft to clean things up before sending to critique partners.

Time Spent Writing and Revising The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception

Research
Outlining
Draft 1
Draft 2
Draft 3
Newspaper Research
Draft 4
Revisions with Publisher
Other Tasks

24 hours
14 hours
147 hours
64 hours
93 hours
16 hours
26.5 hours
20 hours
3 hours

I wrote the first draft of The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception over a period of six months. And that was hard–I don’t think I could easily write a first draft in less than that, because I only have so many high-level creative energy on any given day or week, and there are parts of the creative process that just can’t be rushed.

Why Some Books Take More or Less Time

If I’m going to undergo some self-analysis and reflection (why not? I made charts!) then I would say that the first book in the series took the longest in part because it was the first book. I was still figuring out characters, relationships, and arcs. And I was able to apply a lot of what I figured out about the characters–as well as a lot of the research–to books 2 and 3.

My agent and my editor also taught me things about writing, and mysteries specifically, which I was able to apply in the process of writing both books 2 and 3. This truly did cut out a couple of drafts.

Also, book 3 in the series was the only book I have written in which I managed to include both the plot AND all the major sub-plots in the first draft. (In the first draft of both The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet and The True Confessions of a London Spy, I had most of the subplots, but the main plot was shaky.)

How Long It Will Take Me to Write Future Books

Prior to the Mary Bennet series, I wrote several (unpublished) novels, but I wasn’t as exact about keeping track of time. Based on the records I have, one novel probably took me at least 700 hours. A novella I wrote (“Tatterhood and the Prince’s Hand“) took about 144 hours.

I truly expect that all my future novels will take me at least 400 hours, and if it’s the first book in a series, it could very likely be in the 600 hour range. I’m currently working on a new secret novel, and I’ve already spent 33 hours on brainstorming and research. I could easily have another 60 to 100 hours of research and outlining before I’m ready to start writing the first draft.

I have a number of writing friends who write much more quickly than I do, but I also have plenty of writing friends who take comparable or longer amounts of time to write and revise a novel. There’s no one right way to do it, and either can produce amazing work, as long as it works well with your writing process and your other life commitments.

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