In for the giveaway, plese.

Good on you for finishing and publishing! What a rare accomplishment!

Well done on your wonderful achievement! The description sounds intriguing.

Also thank you for the giveaway. I'd like to be in, please.

My most sincere congratulations for this personal milestone! I hope you get, at least, a decent success and this starts a fruitful career.

Congratulations on the publication of your novel mrkgnao!

I'm in.

Congrats on the publication of your novel and thanks for the giveaway, mrkgnao! +1

Please count me in. :)

Congratulations, now you know the full process of making/publishing novel for the future.
I'm in.

Wow, what an achievement after 7 years of hard work! It looks like you put a lot of research and heart into the book, so congratulations are definitely in order. I hope you can make some money from your effort you really deserve it.

Please, count me in for the giveaway, and thanks!

grats and i am in, thank you.

Congratulations!

In for the giveaway. Thank you!

Congrats!
Thanks for the GA and count me in.

Wow, congratulations on completing the novel! That's a pretty big acomplishment in itself.

I'm in.

btw, I've always wondered about the process of writing a novel. Did you just sit and start writing (plain and simple), or make also some sort of a draft first / make notes etc. ?

Way to go.

I'm in.

I can't speak for this author, but there are many answers to your question. Some authors put a pen to paper and let the story flow out of their hand. Some storyboard everything, mull it over for years, and then put their keyboard to task. Others create a rough outline, then hit it.

I personally start with a basic idea, create shadows of characters, and then sit with them for a while. Sometimes a few months, sometimes a few years. Characters are huge in making a story believable and likable.

Then I usually get a rough outline together, and then start chugging away. I skip over the tedious parts of writing and just write the really good stuff. Then I fill in the gaps. That's the first draft. Perhaps 10% of the work is done there.

After that, edit, revise, edit, revise, edit, revise. Combine characters (that's a bitch), split them, add nuances that you didn't think of until later (a painful one for me was that I had a character who knew a skill, but then I removed her knowledge of that skill -- it wasn't horrible, but I had to find and remove every reference to it in order to set something else up later).

Everyone has their own style, much like a fingerprint. I've seen authors write every other chapter with another writer writing the in-between chapters, and then smoothing the edges once a year at a cabin retreat. I've seen some go start to finish with a single decent edit and then move onto their next project. I've seen some go days per paragraph.

The best way to know your style is to grab a pen and paper or a laptop, sit down, and start writing something.

It differs a lot among writers.
For me, I spent 7 months (full time) "designing" the book, i.e. researching information, preparing an outline of events, etc., before I wrote my first word.
I am pretty certain the second will take much more, as it will be all the more complex.