Dave Farland does a wonderful post about being productive as a writer. This is great information, actually mostly talking about attitude and drive, the two things it takes to become a productive writer. Or productive in anything, actually. Worth the read.
http://www.davidfarland.net/writing_tips/?a=184
Bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith published traditionally more than one hundred popular novels and well over two hundred short stories. His novels include the science fiction novel Laying the Music to Rest and the thriller The Hunted as D.W. Smith. With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he co-wrote The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. He writes under many pen names and ghosts for a number of top bestselling writers.
Dean wrote books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and wrote scripts for Hollywood. One movie actually saw film.
Dean also worked as an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He now plays a role as an executive editor for Fiction River.
WMG Publishing Inc. is now my major publisher of all my coming novels, collections, and short stories.
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I have finally found what works for me. When I decided I was going to be a self published author and knew that you had to be prolific I had to find a way to do it. I could comfortably do 3000 words in about 4-4 1/2 hrs. So what I did was cut that word count in half to 1500 and split my time between two projects. I do 1500 in the morning on one project and then take a break and then do 1500 on the second project. The time is cut in half as well to 2 1/2 hrs on each project. Sometimes 10 more minutes is added on to that project to finish a scene.
Again on weekends I work on another project doing 1500 words in the early morning. I figure by the end of three months I will have two novels done and one novella.
On top of that some evenings like last night I did a little over 500 words on two other projects. I did that with the kids around me. I can work in noise even with them interupting me I still did it.
It’s to find the time that makes you comfortable and finding a word count that makes you happy and comfortable as well. It really can work and I live life as well.
Wow, nice post Vera. I’m beginning to wonder (as sexist as this may sound) if women make more productive writers than men. I’ve managed to do 2k words a day for about 7 months now, and I’m struggling to bump that up to 3k per day, but the splitting it up into different projects (different books I presume?) sounds like a great idea.
Excellent idea, Vera. I always have several novels going at once. To make great headway among each at the same time would be really fulfilling for me. Thanks for sharing your great advice.
Great strategy. Do you just start writing or do you outline or prewrite first?
I also really enjoyed his piece “Motivation vs Habit” (there’s the link at the bottom of this piece). It really struck a chord with me. I’ve used Dean’s online workshops to get me motivated, but I’ve now developed a habit of writing and it’s working quite well for me. I haven’t been this productive in a long time. Thanks Dean and David.
Such a great post. Thanks for sharing, Dean. The final sentence — ‘To be prolific, just string together one productive day after another for an entire lifetime. It adds up!’ — is so simple and yet makes so much sense.
Cheers! Here’s to productivity.
I think so much of it comes down to “put butt in chair. start writing.” That is something a lot of people can’t seem to do (and make a lot of excuses for it).
Yup. A lot of people are going to write the next great novel. Very few actually do so…usually because all they ever do is talk about it.
My entire lecture on Heinlein’s rules applies to this very topic. In fact, it’s what his rules are about.
Marvelous article! It’s wonderful how so many writers share their tips for producing new words. I do what Vera above does…break my writing into two or more sessions and try to create 500-750 words per session after reading someone’s blog who recommended this. I wrote just under 31,000 words in January, and not only did I complete a 65K novel in 90 days, but I also proofread (after having the book scanned) and ePubbed a backlist title within that same timeframe. I will have two backlist titles, one novel, and one novella published the first four months of this year…a project for each month!
Some very good articles on that site in addition to the one you linked to. I particularly liked the one about romance.
Sitting down and getting to work is a big problem with me right now. I need to finish POD formatting the novel, which turned out to include some reworking of the story, and get to the next projects that are languishing on the to-do list.
I’d say I’m procrastinating, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.
I remember when I was in high school watching everyone around me thinking ‘why do they waste so much time?’ not that I was even at David Farland’s level of production. I thought ‘when I get to college it will be better’, but then I got there, and if possible, I think it was worse. They thought the structure of college would provide all they needed to to do and all they had to do was plug in to that. Unfortunately I think that means people unplug their own brains and they miss all the small opportunities to really further themselves.
I think that is true for most everything. It is the small gaps in time and between set activities where you can do so much for yourself, but you can get in the habit of saying ‘I’ve put in my time for the day’ and veg out. The sad truth is you can miss so much of your life that way.
Great article!
@Jodi
The only outlining I do is for characters. The story itself sits in my head for awhile and when I do sit down to write I know the first line and the opening scene and go from there.