Falling Behind

Well, I was hoping to have another book published by now, but I'm behind. I still have one more story in my anthology for my editor to go over, and I'm waiting for my cover art. But, as long as I get it published before the end of the month and get the next one ready, I'll still be on track for my 20 for the year.

I know, it's a crazy goal. Nobody writes that many books! It's just not possible!

Actually, it is; full-time writers do it regularly. And in the world of indie publishing, anyone can do it if they're committed to it. It sounds insane, I know. But I'm going to prove that it can be done. Besides, we're still stuck at home with nothing to do; I might as well write, right?

The thing about writing is that it's just like any other skill, or job, or career. You have to work at it to succeed, and the more time you put in, the better you'll do. I worked out the math, because that's the sort of thing I do. Math is great, because it lays everything out in stark detail.

So, what does the math say? My average writing speed is between 2,000 and 2,500 words per hour at the moment. And I'm working on improving that. What does that mean? Again, math: If I treat writing like a job and do it for eight hours a day, I can spit out between 16,000 and 20,000 words per day. Now, I have to really know what I'm going to write about, and at least have a pretty solid outline in mind to put forth that amount of work and feel like it's quality material. But still, that's a significant amount of work. Especially when you consider that unless you're writing door-stopper epic fantasy, a novel is about 40,000-50,000 words. So, if I'm focused and on task, I can complete a novel in two or three DAYS.

That's unthinkable, isn't it? But really, it's not. As I said, it's the math. And if I can push out a novel in less than three days, I can complete two of them in a single work week. Not a month; a week. So, publishing two in a month isn't that far-fetched after all, is it?

Of course, that's assuming I can devote that amount of time to this on a daily basis. And it's not easy to do; there are a lot of distractions when you're working at home and don't have a private office that you can just close a door and hide away from the world. But now, with COVID-19 still making our lives boring, now is the time to experiment with this. I won't be able to do it next week; if the weather's nice, we're building a deck. And making that much of a jump would be a shock to the subconscious, too. But if I work up to it, devote three hours a day instead of the slightly-under-two that I've been able to do...that would be nice.

Now, the more important problem is that it doesn't do a lot of good to publish if nobody's buying, but that's something I hope to change. And if you're reading this blog, you can help by going to Amazon and picking up one of my books to see if you like it. I recommend A Universe of Possibilities, which is the anthology that will give you a sample of various genres that I write in. Then you can look at my other works that might interest you.