11 Responses so far

1. 1. Mark Terry on Jan 19th, 2007 at 10:39 am

   What I notice most about this argument–and it comes up with a mean-spirited vengeance on Joe Konrath’s blog from time to time–is that published writers rarely give a damn how long it takes other writers to write things, but readers seem to think it matters.

   I’m a fairly rapid writer and I don’t doubt that slowing down might help in some cases, although I haven’t actually seen any correlation between the amount of time I spend writing a piece and whether it sells or not. (On the contrary. I would argue that I have seen absolutely NO CORRELATION in this regard.)

   I’m a fulltime freelancer, so writing fast helps me make a living at this gig. But I also think of William Styron taking 22 years or so to write “Sophie’s Choice,” which is a masterpiece, but what, he averaged half a word a day? The man’s gone and his work certainly stands alone without my approval or criticism, but if you’re taking that long to write something you spent an awful lot of time dicking around rather than actually writing.

   When I give book talks and someone asks how long it takes to write a novel, I’ve generally said, “7 months if it goes well and 14 if it doesn’t.” That’s probably no longer true because I have more time to devote to it (plus, at book talks, you’ve got to say something, right? Which is probably why Harlan Coben always says something along the lines of, “Nine months, almost the exact time it takes to make a baby, and like making a baby, the most enjoyable part is the first ten minutes.”).

   Joe Konrath tends to write his novels in about a month. Lawrence Block, who nobody has spent much time accusing of lack of quality, often wrote his novels in intense periods of one or two weeks, usually while at a writer’s retreat.

   My feeling is, if the book doesn’t have problems, then they don’t take long to write. If they do have problems and you have to fix things or rethink how things are working, they take longer. My upcoming “The Serpent’s Kiss” was one of those books that I wrote very quickly, the structure of the book itself solved most of my problems. Then my agent said, “I loved it, but I didn’t like the motive of your villain. It wrecks what is almost a perfect book. Go change it.” So I did and she was right, but luckily those changes predominantly came at the end.

   My current thriller, “The Devil’s Pitchfork,” took longer because I would write something, decide it took me in a direction I didn’t want to go, so I would rewrite it and continue, then decide I was right the first time and go back… and yeah, that shit will drive you nuts and add a lot of time to your book.

   Best writing advice I ever received (with the possible exception of “sit down, shut up, and write,” was from my former agent: Think more, write less.

   Best,
   Mark Terry
   http://www.markterrybooks.com

2. 2. Steve Buchheit on Jan 19th, 2007 at 11:47 am

   I didn’t think speed was the goal (at least for those of us with other jobs that pay well). It’s the words on the paper and the quality of the “final” piece.

3. 3. tobias s buckell on Jan 19th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

   I think it is all different for every writer.

   I think newer writers tend to, in general, obsess over this way more, but that’s a gut instinct.

   And, although I’m not sure, I think there may a craft vs art thing going in the subtext there. But I am just a pulp genre writer, so I tend to fall down on the craft sword more automatically than the art, art and ego and people trying to create it depress me, I am more interested in the crafters and inventors who create art as they go through the world doing the things they love and let the generations after them decide what the worth of their work was.

   But that’s me romanticizing craft as much as anything

4. 4. Steve Buchheit on Jan 19th, 2007 at 2:42 pm

   Tobias, “I think there may a craft vs art thing going in the subtext there.”

   Yes there is. There was another discussion raging lately that also went to this argument. I think this is actually the third trust. As I posted on another blog, when I read arguments out this type of thing it always seems to boil down to Pin-the-Label-on-the-Hack games.

   (voice=Thurston Howel, III) “Sure they write and sell more than us, Lovey, but ours is Art.” (/voice)

5. 5. Mark Terry on Jan 19th, 2007 at 3:57 pm

   “Art” versus “craft” is actually a topic I steer a long ways from. And if you want to call “Literature” with a capital L “art”, then I’ve been hard-pressed in most cases to come up with a better definition than Tom Clancy’s:

   “Literature is written work that high school students are forced to read 80 years after the death of the author.”

   It’s sure as hell not the only definition, but it’s always worked well for me–means whether I’m creating it or not, I don’t have to worry about it.

6. 6. Rick Novy on Jan 19th, 2007 at 5:03 pm

   My comment was intended as motivation to help you get to 6K/wk, rather than an as editorial about the quality of fast or slow writers. We work as fast as we work. On the other hand, 6000 words per week is not all that far from the numbers you are making.

7. 7. Todd Wheeler on Jan 19th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

   Tobias wrote:
   “I think newer writers tend to, in general, obsess over this way more, but that’s a gut instinct.”

   As a newer writer, I’d agree. For me, it’s not so much a matter of writing as fast as a writer supposedly should or as fast as writer X does it, but faster than I’m doing it now. It is an impatience with how quickly I can get it out the door.

   Writing can be slow if the initial drafts are poorly written. Writing can be slow if one is not used to adapting to whatever circumstances come one’s way and still managing one’s time to put the words on the page.

   As I improve the quality of the words on the page and the skill at managing the time for writing, my speed should become faster. There is a price to pay for speed: experience.

   So to improve on John Scalzi’s quote with an old chestnut:

   The work can be done well, quick, or cheap. Pick two.

8. 8. Paolo Bacigalupi on Jan 20th, 2007 at 7:14 am

   My personal feeling about this issue is that it’s not about whether you write quickly or not. Nor is it about the number of words you produce. Nor is it about the number of hours you spend writing per day. All of these are proxies for the one honest question: Did you fuck around all day, or did you attend to your writing duties? I find that I’ve either stepped up and done my writing work, or I’ve avoided my writing completely and the numbers matter less than my internal sense of whether I was fucking around. From my perspective, successful writers are those people whose internal sense of guilt or self-congratulation closely matches with their actual writing deeds done. And the result is that they produce to a level that satisfies their desire for recogition as a writer. The numbers (1000 words a day, 4 hours a day, etc.) provide some interesting jumping off points for measurement of work done, but the real question is always: Was I working? Or was I fucking around?

9. 9. tobias s buckell on Jan 20th, 2007 at 9:01 pm

   Rick, I so wasn’t dogging on you, I know what you meant. Sorry if I appeared that way! It just lead into my thought that the only person you’re competing with is really yourself…

10. 10. Rick Novy on Jan 20th, 2007 at 10:44 pm

    No problem.

11. 11. Jeff P. on Jan 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm

    Mark,

    I’d hesitate to call William Styron’s long lags between works “dicking around”. I believe a more accurate term would be “depression”.

    Jeff P.