This one is from my driveway this morning. Each year, about this time, the giant pin oak out front fires the first cannon of my annual battle with leaves. It usually ends around, oh, February. In between, there’s lots and lots of bins full of the wounded and the dead — er, leaves, I mean.
It never fails. If I mention to someone that I’m a writer, I almost always get the dreaded question: So what are you writing now?
Usually I give people the short answer, which is whatever I’m closest to finishing, but the truth is a little more complicated. Take now, for example. I’m almost done with my new YA book. That’s certainly where I’m spending the bulk of my writing time. But there’s also the new short story I started the other day that’s five or six pages in. I got bit by a story idea and wanted to at least get down the opening, but I didn’t want to take too long away from the YA because I’m currently writing some of the most pivotal scenes.
So there’s two projects. But I also have the mystery book I finished a few months ago. After getting some feedback from some trusted readers, and sitting on the book for a while, I realized that it’s not quit there. Close, lots of good stuff so it’s not a redraft, but there’s some work that needs to be done. Fortunately, I finally figured out what I think it needs, and I’ve started on that too.
What about the copy edits on the short story collection I finished not long ago and emailed to the editor? Do those count? What about the questionnaire Simon and Schuster asked me to fill out for their new online promotional efforts for their authors?
And heck, right now I’m writing this blog post. Throw that into the mix.
This is certainly not uncommon — in fact, there are lots of writers with far more on their plates than me — but I’ve come to see it as a good thing. One of the best ways to be prolific, and to avoid writer’s block or the dreaded lulls between projects, is to always be working on something. It keeps the creative juices flowing.
But if we’re being literal about it, then unless I’m sitting in front of a computer typing away when somebody asks this question, then really there’s only one answer.
Right now? I’m not writing anything. I’m talking to you.
I mentioned to a friend the other day that it was my goal to write three books over the next year and got the predictably shocked look.
“You?” my friend said. “Are you going to quit your day job?”
“No.”
“But you’ve got a full time job. Two young kids . . .”
My friend wondered how I could possibly find the time. Well, it’s true that I have to make choices, but it’s not nearly as hard as most people think. It’s just writing by numbers.
This isn’t the same thing as painting by numbers. That’s not what I mean. I mean that if I want to write four books (and actually, I want to throw in some short stories too), I figure out how many words that’ll be approximately, then divide that number by the number of days I plan to write. Here’s how it looks in my Writing Productivity Spreadsheet (and yes, I really do have such a spreadsheet, where I log all my writing sessions; if I’m not honest how hard I’m working at this, then it’s too easy to lie to myself):
| Production | ||
| #Words | Total Words | |
| Average Book Length (words) | 75,000 | |
| Average Story Length (words) | 5000 | |
| Number of Books / Year | 4 | 300000 |
| Number of Stories a Year | 6 | 30000 |
| Total Words | 330000 | |
| Daily Rate (missing 35 days) | 1000 |
As you can see, if I write 1000 words a day, 330 days a year, then I can easily reach my goal of writing three books in one year, as well as tossing in a half dozen short stories to boot. In fact, as the chart indicates, I can actually write four books a year, but I built that in as a cushion knowing that I occasionally have to throw away all or part of a novel that isn’t going well. I can write 1000 words in forty-five minutes to an hour and a half, depending on how the work is going. A thousand words is roughly two single-spaced pages.
I change some of the numbers in this spreadsheet as a way of playing”what if.” What if I was writing longer novels (I often write YA, which skews the novel word counts down a bit)? What if I only wrote five days a week? What if I only wanted to write two books a year? Each time I change a variable, it changes what my daily rate needs to be.
A thousand words is a comfortable pace for me. It’s the pace I keep coming back to time and time again. I mix that up with the occasional marathon writing day, but the longer I’ve been at this, the more important it’s become to write every day. I wouldn’t have said that five years ago, but a couple things have happened along the way: 1) I’ve become addicted to writing, so I get cranky when I don’t do it; and 2) As I’ve gotten better at it, I enjoy it even more, so there’s fewer days that I’m having to drag myself into my office.
Can I find an hour a day? Oh sure. Sometimes it’s thirty minutes here, twenty minutes there, but if you’re serious about something, no matter how busy your life is, you can always find the time.
Just run the numbers.
Well I sell all those books? Who knows. That’s outside my control. I’ll certainly try. But I’m a firm believer that the rate of my success is dependent on the level of my productivity, a truism that I think applies to almost anything worth accomplishing in life.
Fall may have officially began September 22, but it’s only now that it really feels like autumn here in the Willamette Valley. The air is crisp in the morning. The leaves have begun to turn brown and litter the pavement. Another summer has passed.
I like doing these quarterly updates to assess where my writing — and to a lesser degree, my life — currently stand. I’m working on a new young adult novel, one that should appeal to readers of The Last Great Getaway of Water Balloon Boys, and I’m aiming to have it done by the end of month. It’s a good thing, because I’ve got a pretty good idea what book I’m writing next, and I’m feeling butterflies in the stomach about it. There’s two or three other books lined up after that, too. Always more books to write. I’m starting to feel a bit like manufacturing can’t keep up with R&D. In other words, too many ideas, too little time. I guess that’s a good thing. Better than the alternative.
Beyond that, I’ve still got a mystery novel that needs a bit more work before it’s ready to send out into the world, so I need to make time for that. It’s close, but I needed to let it sit for a month or two to really look at it objectively.
I just mailed the signing sheets to PS Publishing for the limited edition mini collection I have coming out later this year, called A WEB OF BLACK WIDOWS AND OTHER STORIES OF LOVE AND LOSS. Nothing like autographing your name 100 times to swell your a head a bit — and give you hand cramps. I’ll have more on that soon.
I also recently sent back the copyedited manuscript of my other collection, THE DINOSAUR DIARIES AND OTHER TALES ACROSS SPACE AND TIME. With luck, that one will be out from Fantastic Books early next year.
On the life front, the summer went by too quickly, as usual. We’re enjoying our remodeled home. We spent a week in July camping in our tent trailer in the Redwoods, down in the Prairie Creek area, which included a quick overnite jaunt to the town of Eureka. We made a quick weekend trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota for my cousin’s wedding — with the added benefit of my ninety-two-year-old grandmother getting to meet her three-year-old grandson for the first time. Otherwise, we spent most of those warm summer days in our own back yard — literally.
The kids are growing up fast. My daughter started first grade. First grade! It seems only yesterday that I was strapping her into her car seat for the first time to bring her home from the hospital, this tiny, fragile thing nearly lost in the folds of her blanket. Where has the time gone?