WHY I'M PROLIFIC
Posted on October 11, 2018
Something that has always worked for me is my high level of production. When I was in the comic book industry in my twenties, I learned how to set deadlines and keep my output steady. When I switched to writing novels about seven years ago, my productivity stayed high.
I average three books a year, having released out into the wild twenty-four books over the last seven years. Here's how I do it.
I think being an elementary school teacher at a year-round school is the main reason I can produce three books a year. I teach in North Carolina at a school that has four quarters. Each quarter is nine to ten weeks long. At the end of a quarter, I am off for three weeks. During that time, I commit to thirteen weekdays of writing and have really stuck with that for the last three years, or twelve track outs. It also helps that we've only taken one vacation in the last seven years.
During a track-out, I can usually write between 40,000 and 50,000 words. That's close to 200,000 words a year. With most of my books around 70,000 words, achieving three books a year is feasible. With my children in college and high school, I can get 7-9 hours a day of pure writing. That means a little over a hundred hours of writing in a three-week track out.
I use to write during the nine-week sessions where I was actively teaching, but I found I lost the narrative at times because I was only managing to write one or two nights a week. Having the track-out days consecutive allows me to stay deep in the storyline. Now I still get a very crucial step done during the nine weeks I'm teaching – I do the bulk of my editing of my books during that time. I also send the book out to my beta readers, too.
In addition, my fifth graders are motivating because they are so into my writing. We write a great deal in class and that helps me to stay tapped into my creativity.
So being a teacher at a year-round school is a major component to my productive output.
Another aspect is that I have a writing buddy who is just as prolific. Keith Robinson and I beta read each other's books, and he produces three books a year as well. Often, we exchange our drafts to scrutinize at the same time. We keep abreast of how far along we are with our respective novels, and that friendly air of competition is a great motivator. When we wrote the two-book Fractured series together, I really picked up more strategies on how to maintain my writing stamina. The back and forth we achieved in that book series was the most rewarding collaboration I've ever experienced. I was sometimes frightening how merged our lines of thought became during those two projects.
Brainstorming is second nature to me. Being a constant daydreamer finally paid off. Take that, Dad. :) I've never had a shortage of ideas or encountered writer's block. This is definitely a key element in my prolific nature. I often find my mind solving plot issues on its own while I do everyday chores like cleaning, yard work, or shopping. My noggin just naturally drifts to my stories in these instances, and my creative engine plows through any and all obstacles to reveal the course my story should take. Mowing especially seems to facilitate a lot of idea generation.
The rush and reward I feel at weaving my stories is also highly motivating. I am always eager to immerse myself in the worlds I engineer. I'm an escapist at heart and being able to visit such fantastical worlds as the Questing Academy or a zombie apocalypse is a real treat, even more so when I've created them.
Being prolific requires determination, inspiration, time management, and a chummy writing partner. I'm very fortunate to be so prolific.