Prolific or Consistent?

*Warning: JT’s version of math ahead.
 

The other day, someone told me how prolific I was.

I countered that I am not prolific, I am consistent, and there’s a huge difference. 

I know in many ways, I could be called prolific. I’ve managed to average two full-length novels a year (and by full-length, I’m talking 100,000 words plus) since I began writing over a decade ago, and I’m writing #19 as we speak. I recognize some people don’t do that many books over the course of a career, so by it’s very nature, that number automatically equates to being prolific.

But I’d argue I’m not at all prolific. I have friends who started out the same time as I did who are 10, even 20 books ahead of me. Hell, Dean Wesley Smith wrote a million words of fiction last year, compared to my 217,000. A million words. That, my friends, is prolific.

What I am comfortable with is a label of consistent. Over the course of the past several years, I’ve been tracking my numbers. Here’s a quick and dirty snapshot.

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You can easily see why I’ve got 18 books under my belt— over the course of eight years, I averaged 628 fiction words a day. That’s approximately 229,220 words a year: about two novels and a couple of shorts.

Some years were better than others, clearly. When I started tracking in 2009, I was aghast at how little fiction I wrote, and swore to make up for it. Bu contrast, in 2014 I almost hit the 300,000 mark, and I ran myself ragged doing it. 

But I still don’t feel I’ve hit my potential as far as consistent daily word counts. I do shoot for 1000 words a day, five days a week. If I were to hit that goal consistently, I’d be able to churn out nearly three books a year with ease.

Of course, that’s not how life, and art, work. Everything can be reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet, yes. But does that capture what’s really happening? I think we’d all love to be machines who could crank out the same stuff day after day, but life gets in the way. 

Loved ones pass away. Children need tending. Pets need cuddles. Day jobs are priorities for many of us. It’s the rare few who can transcend the mundane daily issues to truly become prolific, writing huge amounts of QUALITY words. 

Oh, I’d love to be among them, trust me. But I think I’ll probably stick with being consistent instead.

Just a thought for today. I’d love to hear what prolific authors you like to read. And how prolific is too prolific?

1.15.17 - Sunday Smatterings

Hello, my loves. How's your Sunday? Watching football, reading books, getting good R&R? It was a good week at Chez Ellison, a quiet, with really productive writing sessions. This week is a bit busier and capped off by the Midsouth EMMY Awards this Saturday. Cross your fingers for A WORD ON WORDS, we're nominated for Best Interstitial! #keepreading

 

Here's what happened on the Internets this week:
 

Well, y'all, it's January. It's a wee bit dark, and when it's not pitch black, it's a wee bit gray and wet. You may be getting cabin fever or, worse, feeling sad from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). So why does Denmark, which endures a harsh winter every year, rank as one of the happiest countries in the world? The answer may lie in a little concept called hygge (pronounced "hoo-gah"), AKA developing a life of coziness.

There's a concept in the literary zeitgeist gaining popularity, and it's exceptionally worrisome: that writers should not write about what we don't know firsthand. This is a something I'll be exploring on the blog later this month, but to whet your appetite, I give you author Lionel Shriver, who doesn't care if you hate her sombrero.

Did your life seem bit more productive when you were in school? Do you miss that? (if you didn't enjoy school, ignore these two sentences) Chances are, you may be missing the structural goal setting that came with a syllabus. From the Productivityist, here's the easy way to plan out your year.

And speaking of productivity: if you have a big project you want to get done, jumpstart your progress by blocking off time to work on it during Monday morning. You may be surprised at how much easier it is to complete that project when you get momentum going early in the week.

It's no secret that I adore Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series—which is why I relished this in-depth chat with Diana hosted by Harper's Bazaar. It's a long video, but you need to fast-forward to 27:04 to watch the way she composes a sentence. It is mind-blowing, and she is a master. (Also, she just turned sixty five. Sixty. Five. She is radiant.) Plus, the end had me in tears. 

You may hear us writers talk frequently about "voice." But what exactly is a writer's voice, and how do they differentiate one from another? This post from fellow author Shane Hall is chock full of helpful information for writers or the curious reader.

Who doesn't love a good Myers-Briggs personality quiz? This one will tell you what kind of reader you are. I'm an INTJ, and my reader description was scarily accurate.

And closer to home:
 

This is what happens when you're a writer with bored cats. Trust me, it ain't pretty.

I revere silence. Not just because I'm an introvert—it's vital to my being, to my work. This is why.

Hey, Nicholas Drummond fans, listen up: Barnes & Noble has signed copies of the 4th Brit in the FBI book, THE DEVIL'S TRIANGLE, available for pre-order! They're signed by both Catherine and yours truly. Just sayin'. 

That's it from me, y'all! Find a good book, get your hygge on, and we'll talk again soon.

xo,
J.T.

1.12.17 - Silence!

I came across this article from The Economist on Twitter the other day, and was compelled to click because I’d just had a conversation with my husband about my need for large swaths of silent time. 

I’ve long owned my natural introversion, but I think there’s something more fundamental at play. Perhaps it’s from growing up in a forest, perhaps it is the introvert in me (with more than likely a touch of Aspergers to boot…) but I really like silence. I like the quiet that comes from spending the day alone. I like the evenings we spend reading instead of watching television. They rejuvenate my spirit, and bolster my concentration levels.

Who knows why and whence it came, but the fact is, when there’s too much sustained noise around me, I get very frachetty. I can’t concentrate. My thoughts fracture. I find even the simplest tasks hard. I get snappish and annoyed easily, and of course, the work suffers. 

I loved the piece in The Economist because it felt like permission to be true to myself.

Do I want to hike to the top of a mountain and become a monk? Well, only sometimes. 😉 I dream of doing a silent retreat, but I would want to have my husband there to talk to at night. Does that defeat the purpose? I can’t imagine going more than a few hours without hearing his voice, and he mine. True love? Codependence? Who cares, it’s a fact. So the all-silent thing isn’t for me, I guess. I did get a kick out of the fact that the author of the piece thought a week-long silent retreat was going to be the best thing ever, and instead bailed and left after a day. 

Silence is not for everyone. 

I don’t see the boredom in silence. I see it as a state of being. A calm lake on a cloudless day. A snow-capped mountain set against a sapphire sky. A perfectly attuned book photograph on Instagram. Something that makes you pause in your day and say, “Wow, that is beautiful. I need to stop here and admire it for a moment.”

Your shoulders relax, you breathe a little deeper, your mood is bolstered. 

That’s what silence does for me.

I’ve always admired writers who can go to coffeeshops and work. I have a fun group of writers here who do just that, and I join them on occasion. They rack up word counts while I get business done. Emails, blogs, things I can do with half an ear cocked elsewhere. There are just so many people to look at, characters all. I find myself daydreaming about who they are, what there lives are like, what they do for a living, who loves them, who they love, why they’re in the coffeeshop at that particular moment… which is a great creative exercise, but it also means zero word counts, which defeats the purpose.  

Lately, especially, the computer itself is also an agent of noise, even when it’s not playing anything through the speakers. The screen clamors for attention, a siren’s call. The consumption of this particular kind of noise is devilish to me—a bargain that must be made. I need the research. I like the friendships. I adore the education.

But at the same time, this is why I’ve been working so hard to turn off my devices, to spend time in REAL silence, meditation and yoga, a general tuning in to the universe. It’s hard to tether a lifeline, but I’m finding it more and more rewarding to have these few hours of true silence in my life. 

This is probably why Cal Newport’s DEEP WORK feels so right to me, why I like to turn on Freedom and work. The quiet is permeable, an entity unto itself. It grows around me, a favorite blanket, allowing me to relax and create. To simply be. 

Something I don’t know that we do enough of. 

Are you the strong silent type?

1.10.17 - Wintering with Kittens

I love my cats. This will come as no surprise. But since the weather has turned cold, they are driving me crazy.

The littlest one in particular, as she possesses more energy than her big sister (or any other cat in the nation, I assume). They are both hunters, without a doubt. Give me a red dot laser pen, and I can keep them entertained for at least ten minutes. The house is strewn with fake mice — they prefer the real rabbit fur ones we get online, but in a pinch, anything that can be thrown will do. I already have 1500 steps on my Fitbit simply through this morning’s play. 

They love to be engaged, love to chase things up and down the stairs. Jameson in particular is a kamikaze pilot. She slides across the wood floor, smashing into cabinets and doors, losing nails as she pivots and twists on the throw rugs. Jordan is only slightly more sedate—when you get her going, she is like a snow fox, jumping high and pouncing with all four feet. She can jump six feet straight up to my shoulder from a seated position, gliding through the air like a flying squirrel, in a second flat. We call her Air Jordan for a reason.

When we built the porch last year, they found a safe haven. It’s fully screened with heavy duty pet screening, and they chatter with the birds, watch the squirrels, spy on our neighbors, their minds completely engaged. In the summer, spring, and fall, they spend 90% of their time out there, completely entranced with the wild.

Days like today, cold, dreary, highs in the 20s, the possibility of snow, I have to keep the porch door shut, and I begin to understand parental lamentations about school snow days. I am having a hard time focusing on my fiction, and so have been handling the non-fiction and easy chores, because Jameson will not leave me alone. She wants to chase mice, roll in plastic bags, be brushed, jump over my head, run up the stairs, hang off her perch like a monkey in the trees. Jordan was diverted by the laser, chasing it in circles until she got dizzy, then sauntered off for a nap. But not James. The cat is actually bored.

I didn’t know cats could get bored. I’ve never had kittens with so much energy, so much joie de vivre. They delight in our attentions, whether being carried around like babies or leaping waist-high to catch a furry mouse. Anything, anything, to keep the laptop off my lap. Long, mournful meows are the trademark — they cry and cry (or squeak, in Jordan’s case, the one who never mastered her words) like they’re hurt until they see me coming to check on them, then they dart away, with grins on their fanged mouths, thrilled that the chase is on. 

I think they were taught this by the cardinals, who tease and scold outside the porch windows. I read once that cats don’t normally vocalize to other cats unless in the grips of a berserker fury fighting each other. They’ve learned their calls and trills to talk to their humans. Mine seem to have taken this to an extreme, because they are mouthy as all get out.

This in comparison to my parents beautiful Siamese, Jamocha. At 15, she is going into renal failure. She is quiet and reserved anyway, a shy cat all her life, but especially so now. We spent the Christmas holiday coaxing and petting, doing anything we could to get food into her mouth. My brother’s cat, Miraj, is also elderly and ill, and somewhat quiet, but we managed to get both of them eating and enjoying their lives again. Quality of life in little old lady cats is a joy to behold, trust me.

What a blessing, these beasts. Whether young or old, we will do anything for them, anything to make them happy, content, satisfied. Who is really the pet, do you think?

And I just realized… there is silence. My beasties are asleep. Collapsed, really. Charging their batteries for the next go round. The wee demons have granted me an hour’s writing time. I better be off to it.

Tell me about your fur babies!

1.8.17 - Sunday Smatterings

Hello, friends! How's 2017 treating you so far? It's been good to Chez Ellison, giving us a quiet week, and even a lovely snowfall. You know what? I'll take both.

I'm all inspired and energized to tackle the new year (in fact, I just completed my Annual Review), so many of the links this week will be focused on doing good work and good living. And without further ado...

Here's what happened on the Internets this week:

Y'all have heard me wax rhapsodic about DEEP WORK by Cal Newport. That book has revolutionized the way I approach my craft, and I can't recommend it enough. So needless to say when Cal speaks, I listen. And I really enjoyed his blog post about deep scheduling. If you find yourself struggling with keeping commitments while doing quality work, you need to read this article.

My bestie is brilliant. This article will show you why.

This is for anyone taking a risk: "Failure Must Be an Option."

Nerd Alert: Svenja Gosen 2017 word tracker sheets are LIVE! For all you writers out there, these are gold.

Simply profound, brought to you by The Economist—"The Power and Meaning of Silence."

There's hardly anything greater than a master craftsman working away. I loved this profile on the last bookbinder on the Lower East Side.

And closer to home:

If you got the newsletter this week, you'll have noticed a special contest exclusive to newsletter subscribers. Aren't signed up for my newsletter? You can remedy that here.

I really enjoyed chatting with James Rains of the Dog Eared Reads radio show out of KMXT in Kodiak, Alaska! We talked about my start in the writing business, co-writing with Catherine Coulter... and my embarrassing Anne Rice story. 🙈

I've started my newest standalone novel (my 19th book!), and it's a little rough going so far. Usually it's because I start in the wrong place, but this time I think the culprit is POV. You'll see what I mean.

Oh! I've just updated my favorite books list. If you're curious, check out my recommendations.

That's it for this week, y'all! Go to bed on time, shovel your neighbor's sidewalk, and we'll talk again soon.

xo,
J.T.