How Long Have You Been Working on Project Hale Mary?

The new book is called project hale mary. And i believe that this bookha actually been in the works for several years, probably five or six years. There feels like there's some sort of topical overlap, at least an interstellar pandemic,. So how long have youbeen working on it? And a much is ecurrent pandemic influenced your thinking? Well, ye, ok, so i'll answer the second question first. The pandemic didn't affect the writing of the novel at all because i finished the whole thing before the pandemic happened. It took a really long time to get on shelves because the pandemic got in the way of the product pipe line.