productivity & discipline
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Contemplative
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December 27, 2005
Over on Paul Guyot's blog, he goes on about discipline, that writers need to write every day and be productive and treat their writing like a job. He's right.
Since we're wrapping up 2005, I can throw this out. Writers who have the luxury of writing a single novel a year, or a single book, or a single screenplay and making a good living at it are a rarity. Even those single novel-a-year folks, like Joe Konrath, probably spend a ton of time in marketing and business aspects of their careers. (And the number of short stories Joe writes and markets and sells along with his marketing efforts make me look like a slacker by comparison).
Unless I get an invoice out by this Friday, I will have invoiced for 134 articles and/or book reviews for 2005. In addition, I edited 4 issues of The Journal of the Association of Genetic Technologists, wrote at least one freebie column for Reel Life With Jane (2, now that I think about it), signed a 2-book contract with Midnight Ink, wrote a draft of the 3rd book in the Derek Stillwater series, started another novel (about 120 pages so far) and gave 20 or 30 book talks, book signings and attended a writing conference and a genetics conference.
The point of this is, if you scratch the surface of any full-time writer in any area of the business--novels, magazines, TV or film--99.9% of the time you're going to find a disciplined workaholic. Because we work out of our house in our pajamas or sweats or T-shirt and shorts, or at coffee shops, it's easy to get the impression we're living this laid-back life of leisure. I think it's a bullshit impression. In order to make a go of this, we're mostly working our asses off. I may work 9 to 5 and work out 3 days a week, but I'm also checking e-mail at 7:15 in the morning and 8:30 in the evening, and I'm working past 5 when necessary, and I've conducted interviews in the evenings and I routinely spend 3 or 4 hours working on Sundays, and on Saturdays when necessary.
I don't think I'm the exception, either.
So get to work.
Best,
Mark Terry
Over on Paul Guyot's blog, he goes on about discipline, that writers need to write every day and be productive and treat their writing like a job. He's right.
Since we're wrapping up 2005, I can throw this out. Writers who have the luxury of writing a single novel a year, or a single book, or a single screenplay and making a good living at it are a rarity. Even those single novel-a-year folks, like Joe Konrath, probably spend a ton of time in marketing and business aspects of their careers. (And the number of short stories Joe writes and markets and sells along with his marketing efforts make me look like a slacker by comparison).
Unless I get an invoice out by this Friday, I will have invoiced for 134 articles and/or book reviews for 2005. In addition, I edited 4 issues of The Journal of the Association of Genetic Technologists, wrote at least one freebie column for Reel Life With Jane (2, now that I think about it), signed a 2-book contract with Midnight Ink, wrote a draft of the 3rd book in the Derek Stillwater series, started another novel (about 120 pages so far) and gave 20 or 30 book talks, book signings and attended a writing conference and a genetics conference.
The point of this is, if you scratch the surface of any full-time writer in any area of the business--novels, magazines, TV or film--99.9% of the time you're going to find a disciplined workaholic. Because we work out of our house in our pajamas or sweats or T-shirt and shorts, or at coffee shops, it's easy to get the impression we're living this laid-back life of leisure. I think it's a bullshit impression. In order to make a go of this, we're mostly working our asses off. I may work 9 to 5 and work out 3 days a week, but I'm also checking e-mail at 7:15 in the morning and 8:30 in the evening, and I'm working past 5 when necessary, and I've conducted interviews in the evenings and I routinely spend 3 or 4 hours working on Sundays, and on Saturdays when necessary.
I don't think I'm the exception, either.
So get to work.
Best,
Mark Terry
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