My Writing Process

By Dirk Biesinger • September 30, 2025

No, I'm not going to tell you how to set up your writing process. This is not one of these posts.
Because these kinds of posts are not relevant. To you. Whatever you need to do, whatever it is that works for you, is very personal to you.
It is ok to inform yourself how others do it. It does not mean what works for others will work for you. It gives ideas however, about what could work for you and what is worth experimenting with.
So here is what works for me.
Before I go into the details, I want to point out how much, at what speed I write should not be used as a benchmark. I'm going to quote Brandon Sanderson here. If you can set up a process that you can put out 100k words a year, that is terrific. And I have to agree. If you can get to that and maintain it, you are well on your way.
Let's dive in.

First: Consistency.

Consistency beats sprints and spurts any day. And night. Every season, always. I take care of things around writing, like setting up a webpage, posting to a blog or making videos, marketing, and all that during the day or in two quiet hours I have every morning. This leaves me a window of 2.5 to 3 hours every evening to write. Every day.

Second: Distractions.

Sometimes it is small things. Like a chair adjusted not "just right", causing a little discomfort. Or in my case, listening to music with vocals. It distracts me. So my writing playlist is instrumentals only.

Third: Progress.

Progress is better than perfection. The first draft will be rough. It's the first draft, not a finished product. Take the leap, leave yourself notes in it for things that need to be fleshed out. Do your info dumps. You won’t leave them for the final version. In my case, doing info dumps while writing the first draft gets the details into the book that need to be there. Usually, during revisions, I deal with info dumps. In many cases, I divide them up, spread them over many pages at snippets, where it naturally flows. By having them in the first draft, I know what needs to be in the book, it is a rearranging and not adding to or changing of the story. So go for the gaps. Embrace them. I have a very rich and complex world. But barely anything is 100% finished in it. I add as much as I need for the moment plus a framework that everything fits together. Or I add into the world things that I know I will need in the future but have to seed right now. I need the details for that.

Fourth: Process.

Establish a process that you think will work for you. It's ok to tune it for the next book. Or add to the process if you notice it being necessary. Having a process keeps you focused on the step you are doing right now.
My process is:
First draft. Then I read it, correcting obvious mistakes, adding in what I left notes for myself in the draft I do not spend a lot of time on that, however, because the point is to read what I have. Very roughly spoken, what you write in an hour, you read in two minutes. To stay with the 100k book from earlier, that would be read in just under seven hours. And be written in 200 hours. You see where this is going? After the first draft, after thinking a lot, after being deep in the details of the story for 200 hours, one or two hours at a time, it has been a long time since the start of the book. So read it, get yourself re-acquainted with it, the details refreshed.
Then it is time for the next step. First revision. Here, I go deeper, rearrange, correct, change the one or other story arc if it did not work out as I wished. Or I need to add more details for certain aspects of the storyline.
Next, I do a rinse and repeat for the second revision. The writing after this stage is still rough, but the main skeleton and shape of the book is there.
This is alpha status. This is the time my wife gets the first read of it. At the same time, I either edit another book, or start reading it myself, this time on a printout. I make notes, underlining, highlighting with different colors. To mark what needs to happen or what needs attention. E.g. resolving of info dumps, grounding, moving sections to someplace else. re-writing whole chapters.
Then another round of revisions, taking my notes and the wife's feedback.
Perhaps an additional round of revisions.
Then it's at beta status. Going out to beta readers and again the wife. I let it sit a bit. Usually read it while consolidating the beta reader feedback and coming up with the changes needed. In most cases, I do this again on printout.
This is followed by one or two more revisions. And typically, two readings with small corrections before it goes out to my editor for line editing. After a couple of weeks (about one week per 30k words), I get the draft back with many markups.
Those I consolidate, either by accepting them or refining myself in places.
Then, finally, the text is ready after another reading.

Fifth: go at your own pace.

It does not matter what someone else does. They do not have your life. They do not have your story in them. They do not walk in your shoes. That job is taken. By you. So, you do you. As does everybody else. I will be putting together a summary of my first two years of writing for the November newsletter. (I started writing 04. November 2023). As a sneak peek and to give a reference. I'll have published or ready to publish over 500k words in those two years. Only counting books. That is my pace. You do yours. You do your pace.

Sixth: Writing a book is just the beginning.

But I'm not going into the details in this post. Because you need a cover, a blurb, marketing materials, and need to create actual files to print the books or get them on e-readers. And you need to sell books. To curate a community. It is endless.

There you have it. This is my process and what is important to me around writing.