I recently attended the Romance Writers of America
conference in San Diego, and while I was there, I went to a workshop called
“Being Prolific and Productive While Remaining Sane” with Robin Covington,
Laura Kaye, and Rebecca Zanetti as speakers. Guys, this was an eye-opener, so I
wanted to share some of the points that came up during their session.
First, let me say, these ladies write crazy fast. Don’t be
scared by what I’m about to share ‘cause I’m telling you… This is insane. And,
yes, you might detect a little bit of envy from this post. Just sayin’…
Robin said the book that took her the longest to write was
80,000 words. She wrote it in EIGHT weeks.
I warned you…
The longest it took Laura to write a full-length book (about
80-90K) was four months.
The fastest it took Rebecca to write a 95,000-word book was
ONE WEEK.
Ready to pass out yet?
Not everyone can write this fast, but you can train yourself
to write faster. Why would you want to?
The Pros to Writing Fast:
-You can publish often.
-You’re always in the story. You don’t have to go back and
read the last scene or chapter you wrote, so you can jump right in and write.
-You can build a backlist quickly and make money off those
books.
-Your publisher will continue to market all your books.
-You’ll rapidly build a readership.
The Cons to Writing Fast:
-The expectation (from your publisher and readers) is that
you’ll continue to write fast.
-Promotion takes a lot of time, but you need to find a way
to fit that and writing into your day.
-Your deadlines will stress you out.
-You might not make time to exercise or eat well, and your
health could suffer.
-Your family might forget who you are.
-You could cannibalize your own sales because your books
will compete against each other.
-You’ll get complaints from readers if you don’t produce as
often.
-You could burn yourself out.
Want to learn how they do it? Check out some tricks on how
to be a prolific writer. I’ll post them on my blog August 9. See you then.
Lynnette Labelle
Yes please. I'd love to hear more.
ReplyDeleteI was unable to make it to RWA this year due to lack of funding. Please toss more crumbs.