So I was reading an interview with a top-selling author today. I’m a fiend for author interviews, perspectives and fetishes, because I keep hoping to stumble across a secret to writing a successful book that goes beyond “actually sitting down and typing the story out of your head.” I’d love to hear someone offer a magic concoction that would pull all my words and nuances from the corners of my brain without making me sit at my desk. Sitting at my desk distracts me, especially now that there’s Twitter. (Author’s Note: I kid you not. Twitter is like crack for people looking to get distracted. I actually abandon my work to read what all my Twitners are having for lunch. And it enthralls me.)
Anyway, back to the published author. In this interview she tells us all that she can write a complete novel in TEN BUSINESS DAYS. For real.
Now, I’ve never read any of her books. I may have to get one from the library, though, just so I can see what a ten-day written wonder looks like. I’m betting she doesn’t rewrite each of her chapters twelve times. She probably doesn’t spend a lot of time sketching out the houses where her characters live or drawing timelines with their family trees. Or reading about the history of Welsh pharmacology. That’s all the stuff I do for my various unfinished books.
Ten days. Wow.
Trollope used to do that. Of course, it shows (IMO).
I’m betting her books are all basically the same with different names for the characters.
Most anything can be done quickly if you’re following a formula.
Ten days… is that AFTER three years of research or actually stream-of-thought, crank-it-out production?
Is there a genre written in 140 character paragraphs? *grin*
Oh that’s nothing…VC Andrews can write books from beyond the grave!
Oh that’s nothing…VC Andrews can write books from beyond the grave!
J.R.R. Tolkien has that gift too. He needed it. It took him 89 years to complete Children of Hurin. Only 34 of those years were spent working while being dead. Works out to about a page every 100 days.