Painstaking vs Prolific - how fast do you write?

Every time I do a school visit, I inevitably get asked, "How long does it take you to write a book?" It's a fair question, but the answer is, "How long is a piece of string?" It's different for every book, and it can also depend on whether someone is waiting for it (i.e. a commissioned work). People often say, "Gee, you're so prolific", which can feel like a criticism, but I loved to hear about Monet and how he would paint all day and complete 8 or 9 works in that time.

It's all practice. Some practice takes longer. Some things take longer to learn. Some books take longer to "get right". Plus, I write chapter books as well as novels, so a chapter book might only be 2000 words. Ray Bradbury used to write a short story a week - some of his writing advice includes 'Don’t start out writing novels. They take too long. Begin your writing life instead by cranking out “a hell of a lot of short stories,” as many as one per week. Take a year to do it; it simply isn’t possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.'

It's the same with picture books and chapter books. Write a picture book or a chapter book every week for a year and you're sure to come up with a few gems! In order to do that, you'll need a list of ideas. Bradbury is also famous for writing a huge list of words and then writing a story about each one. (Read Zen in the Art of Writing where he describes this.)

What about novels? John Creasey, who wrote 564 books, said, 'How many words a day do I write? Between six and seven thousand. And how many hours does that take? Three on a good day, as high as thirteen on a bad one.' Wow. Georges Simenon wrote 75 novels and 28 short stories about his detective character, Maigret. Simenon also wrote around 300 other novels and novellas, plus pulp fiction (under more than two dozen pseudonyms) and nonfiction. He was apparently able to write a novel in just a few days, but The Guardian has a quote from him that made me wonder what drove him: "Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness." Hmmm.

Right now, I'm back writing my two pages (or 30 minutes) minimum per day. It works. On bad days, I make sure I do the minimum; on good days I write more. Earlier this year, because I was writing a novel for my fourth semester at Hamline's MFAC program, this routine led to me finishing a 66,000 word YA novel. I didn't plot this one out beforehand so it was like writing in the dark - nervewracking. There were many days when I sat with no idea what would come next. But the 30 minutes minimum kept me at it.

Revision is different. I can spend two hours on the same pages it took me 30 minutes to write! But I also think other aspects tie into whether you are prolific or painstaking. (Painstaking to me is four years on one book.) One is simply typing speed. In high school I took typing as a subject instead of biology. I still have no desire to cut up frogs, but I type fast. Another is to do with plotting. I think if you know where you are going you will write faster and write more (feel free to disagree).

Another is to do with style and language. I suspect that literary writers take a lot longer to write - they are painstaking about language and sentences. Or maybe they need more thinking time? I love to be swept along by my characters and the story, but then my second and third and further drafts have to slow down and focus more on filling in the details.

And in answer to the school visit question? The Littlest Pirate in a Pickle (1600 words) took me a week, mainly because I woke up with the whole story in my head. That was a gift. Whereas Pirate X took me ten years. It started out as a 120,000 word first draft, by Draft 5 it was down to 85,000 words, and when it was finally published, it was 62,000 words. It was only my passion for the story that kept me at it - around the fourth year, a vicious critique almost killed it for me.

So whether you're prolific or painstaking, the only thing that will get you to The End is perseverance. The pleasure in being prolific is that you get there faster!

Me and the MFAC - graduation!

Some of you who read this blog know I have spent the past two years studying a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University in St Paul, Minnesota. Well, this time is about to end. Tomorrow I graduate (no one has raced up to tell me my final thesis was rejected, so I guess it’s true!) It’s both a wonderful celebration and a sad time. A celebration of all the work I have done and the learning, the many, many lectures and workshops, and the massive amounts of writing, all of which have taught me something new.

It’s also sad because I am leaving behind a fabulous community of writers. I hope to see them again, but I live 20 hours flying time away – not counting stopovers – and that is going to make it difficult. Thank goodness for Facebook where my classmates and I have created our own special community, a place for support, encouragement and whining. There is always someone to hear you and say, “Me, too. Keep going.”

I have been asked many times by writers and others in Australia – why go all the way to Minneapolis to do a Masters? Quite simply, it’s because there is nothing like this in Australia. There is no specialisation in children’s and YA writing, there is no amazing faculty of experienced writers/teachers who give their students so much, there is no low residency format that allows you to both work at home, around your job and real life, and come together every six months for an intensive 11 days. We go home after each residency exhausted and exhilarated. 

During each residency the students who have just finished their critical thesis (3^rd semester) present a lecture on their topic. This time I’ve heard about silence in fiction, keeping 4^th and 5^th grade boys reading, ambiguous endings in YA fiction, hopeful endings and why we need them, and what a great beginning requires, among others. I’ve also heard my classmates read from their creative thesis work, which has been astounding in its quality and range. Everything from picture books to young adult novels, as you would expect, but I expect many of the works I’ve heard to be published. They really are that good!

All of us know (and gratefully acknowledge in our final thank-you speeches) that our advisors have helped us take our writing to soaring new heights. Having someone who really cares about your work, your processes, your struggles and your breakthroughs, is invaluable. It’s more than critiquing. It’s exploring, questioning, pushing, suggesting, demanding and, most of all, supporting.

In tangible terms, I graduate with two novels, a critical thesis on verse novels, part of a verse novel and nine picture books. In less tangible, but more important, terms, I leave with a renewed energy and commitment to my writing, a greater depth of knowledge, a much deeper understanding of the craft of writing, and a stronger, profounder approach to effective revision.

I thank Mary Rockcastle (who was the main reason I chose Hamline) and all the terrific staff, and my advisors: Marsha Qualey, Marsha Chall, Ron Koertge and Anne Ursu. Go out and buy their books and then you will want to go to Hamline, too. And I thank my classmates, the MadFACers – let’s all keep writing together. Then soon I’ll be able to go and buy your published books!

Should a writer have to "pay their dues"?

There are few things that rile children's writers more than bad celebrity picture books! Think Madonna and Sarah Ferguson, and recent books by basketball and football players (many of which are co-written or ghost-written anyway). Picture books are just about the most difficult kinds of stories to get right, and those writers who are trying to break in and get published know that "competent" isn't going to do it.

Unless you're already famous for something else, in which case the feeling from the "real" picture book writers is that it's just not fair. To some extent, the same sentiment can be heard when it comes to adult writers who decide to pen a YA or children's novel or two. "Like it's not hard enough to get published already," I hear people say. "Why do they have to horn in on our territory?" Then there's the Stephanie Meyers of the world who dream an idea and write vampire books that sell millions of copies, and the writing is not even very good.

Sheesh, what's a writer to do?

Apart from anything else, keep writing. And keep improving. That's really all that is in our control. To work hard and get better. When I do goal setting with students and clients, I have to remind them that "Get my novel published" is not a goal so much as a dream. Write novel, revise novel (many times), research publishers and agents, send novel out. Those are goals. But we end up having little control over whether we'll get published or not when we venture into the world of traditional publishing.

Publishing has changed. Once upon a time (very apt term, if you think about it), a writer wrote - usually many drafts, on a typewriter (which meant re-typing the whole novel each time), with no classes or workshops, no MFAs, no manuscript critique services. Just the writer and their words. Sometimes they had writer friends to bounce off, which is why we have collections of letters - back in the day, they wrote real letters to each other about their processes and ideas and doubts. But mostly they had to slog it out on their own. Publication meant you had taught yourself enough, by simply writing and reading critically, to achieve a certain standard.

It's different now. For a start, everyone wants to be a writer. That's how it seems some days. Everyone thinks they can be a writer. That's why publishers and agents are inundated with manuscripts, especially picture books because they're short and easy, right? Computers mean it's easier to pound out a manuscript, use the spell checker on it, and send it off. If a publisher or agent has the time to wade through all those manuscripts, they might find one gem. It's more likely that they will want a query letter instead to try and weed out the competents, incompetents and just plain weird.

And then there is the marketplace. The marketplace is voracious and endless, always wanting something new, something hot, something that will make everyone lots of money. Or win awards. So the idea of an apprenticeship in writing, and even Malcolm Gladwell's theory of 10,000 hours of practice to become a master, can be flipped in an instant when someone comes along with a great, original idea. Or a pretty good idea that can be wrestled into an immensely sell-able one.

What are all those other writers supposed to do? They're "paying their dues", learning, writing, rewriting - why doesn't that deserve the rewards?

I think there are two things at play - one is most definitely the marketplace. Even publishers can be astounded by a book that just takes off, but they also know to hedge their bets with things like trendy series and books "just like that one selling a million". But the other thing is creativity. It's not something that can be pinned down - it's like a gorgeous butterfly. Marvel at it in the air or perched on a flower, but stick a pin through it onto a board and you've just got a pretty dead thing.

If we keep working and writing and rewriting, we are learning. If we keep reading and dreaming, we are learning and growing. Feed your creativity, do the work. Most of us do have to "pay our dues". How else are we going to become better writers? And then hope that when that amazing idea comes fluttering past, that you can capture it without killing it, and make something out it that is publishable!

What poem has stayed with you?

Recently, I picked up a poetry collection I've had for a while and dipped into (as you do - one of the pleasures of a collection of poems) - the book was Dear To Me: 100 New Zealanders Write About Their Favourite Poems (Random House NZ, 2007). A lot of the selections were safe - classics by Keats, Byron, Tennyson etc. A few were odd. Some were new to me, and my favourite was Murray Ball's poem about his cat, Horse.

But it did set me thinking about poems that I've remembered for their effect on me at different times in my life. The list would be quite long, but no doubt there are millions of people who couldn't name one poem! Unless it's one they hated from being made to study it at school. Top of my list is the first poem I remember reading at high school - I think this was the first time I realised that poetry didn't have to rhyme, and that it could say things I thought were indescribable!

SYMPTOMS OF LOVE

Love is a universal migraine,
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares --
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could  you endure such grief
At any hand but hers?

Robert Graves

(from Collected Poems, Cassell 1975)

So what poem would be on your list that you've never forgotten, and why?

What happens when you stop procrastinating

Nearly all writers procrastinate. The ones who don't are on some kind of deadline! Either publisher-induced or from some outside requirement. How do I know this? From talking over the years to many, many writers, and observing myself. You're not alone.

Procrastination is a manifestation of different things but the one biggie is fear. Fear that what you write will suck. That what you write will cause some kind of upheaval. That what you write will cause you to be REJECTED. I do think that 95% of the time, there is a very direct line between procrastination about your writing and your fear of it being rejected.

It doesn't matter by who. It is likely to be a publisher, but can also be any or all members of your family, your spouse, your second cousin twice removed that you used as a character because she is just so weird. The thing is - it's in your head. And the only person who can get it out there, lay it on the table and dissect its cause, is you. A lot of writers either don't realise this, or don't want to do it.

But what happens when you stop procrastinating? When you actually shove aside every excuse, reason, fear or "block" and write?

You write. And you often write good stuff. You end your writing day feeling terrific. Feeling like a million dollars. Feeling like "why did I spend half my day avoiding that when it was so GOOD?".

Next time you write, and you have that great feeling, this is what you do. You take a few minutes to describe that feeling to the best of your ability. You use every descriptive word, you explore the feeling, you can even draw pictures of it. Then you put it up above your computer or your writing space so the very next day, there it is. You read it. You remember what it was like to write, how good you felt, how the words flowed out despite your struggling.

You read it several times if you need to. And then you write again. Use that feeling. Over and over, use it to remind yourself that yes, writing is hard, but when you do write, the writing itself is the best reward ever. Make it part of who you are as a writer. Celebrate the writing.