The Virtue of Slow Writers
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How can they spend so much time writing?
Are they independently wealthy? Do they have a job we just don’t hear about, and they write in their own time? Do they not have families depending on them?
I’d love to have a life of leisure pursuing the highest quality of a thing I can build over a decade. But my family also needs to eat.
If they're not so famous, the have regular day jobs, or usually writing related side gigs, like writing articles for magazines (at least back when this made you a livable wage), teaching literature, and so on.
Others are independently wealthy, or have spouses who support them.
And some still live in poverty and make it day to day, with random gigs and the kindness of strangers.
(EDIT: "Cordwainer Smith" worked PSYOPs for Uncle Sam, and pointed out in a textbook that as psychological warfare operators make their career in being economical with the truth [he wrote several decades too early to have "spin doctor" in his vocabulary] one should not rely on their self-evaluations of their own effectiveness. I wonder if this were a dig at Bernays, who seems to have been willing to push his own brand at least as hard as he pushed those of his clients?
Finally, William Faulkner's resignation from his post office day job: As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.)
> When I tried to get out of bed today I simply collapsed. There’s a very simple reason for it, I am completely overworked. Not by the office but by my other work. The office plays an innocent part in it only insofar as, if I didn’t have to go there, I could live in peace for my work and wouldn’t have to spend those 6 hours a day there, which have so tormented me that you cannot imagine it, especially on Friday and Saturday, because I was full of my concerns. In the end as I am well aware this is only chatter, it’s my fault and the office has the clearest and most justified claims on me. But for me it is a horrible double life from which insanity is probably the only way out.
In the UK, the average full time writer earns less than they would at McDonalds, but their average household income is well above average. In other words: Most rely on a reasonably well earning partner.
And full time writers are rare even among fairly successful writers published by big publishers.
I have a few friends who have written NYTs best sellers. They made no money from them. One friend of mine is quite famous, writes regularly for the NYTs magazines… and again.. no money (not $0 but not enough to buy a new laptop). They give a lot of lectures and public speaking, most of which pay $0.
It’s hard to write for more than a few hours a day, when you do it every day. You spend the rest of your time researching, organizing, day job, raising children, divorcing, etc.
those are hard to get, especially your first one, and also it's not quite enough money, but it's not completely ridiculous that it could fund some full-time writing.
Every author has to figure out why they write. For me it was a business decision, and finally this year I'm making more from books than I was doing software.
I'd like my technical non-fiction to lead to a novel deal later. What do you think?
I'm not sure about the intersection between technical books and traditional novelists. The only person I've known who tried it ended up going the self published route for the novel.
I am curious myself about writing a book for the general business audience through a traditional publisher.
Happy to answer more questions, I have details in my bio for contacting me.
but those books are fuckign huge though. it does not surprise me it took so long
Prolific artists get more practice; they get more feedback; they get more opportunities.
Stephen King writes about 1,000 words per day, consistently. Some other writers may do much more in a single day, but are more sporadic, “when inspiration strikes.”
Eminem has been prolific and is well known for his writing. I read an account from Akon working with Eminem in the stupid where he said Eminem treats music like a job. He shows up in the morning, works, takes his lunch break, works, and is done at 5pm. He’s showing up consistently, and he’s writing constantly, most of which will never been seen.
Jerry Seinfeld also famously wrote a joke every single day, not breaking the streak.
With this much practice, it would make sense that they’d get faster of time, but someone who is slow and consist will be much more prolific throughout the course of a lifetime, than someone who is fast, but inconsistent.
In this parable¹, the teacher divided a ceramics class into two groups. One was graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, and the other solely on its quality. The result was that the "quantity" group also created higher-quality work.
King is a "quantity" guy, which means that the quality of his work is inconsistent, but he releases a lot of high-quality work.
GRRM is a "quality" guy, which means he may not finish the A Song of Ice and Fire series before he dies.
¹ https://excellentjourney.net/2015/03/04/art-fear-the-ceramic...
Does quantity map to speed or consistency?
Maybe it depends whether it’s an individual or group effort?
For an individual, the feedback loop would seem to have a speed limit, as they’d need to evaluate the prior work and try to improve upon it.
Whereas in a team, individuals can churn out quantity and an editor can pick the best of the batch.
When a person is stuck in that belief, which they often don’t explicitly realize, to have the realization that slow-but-high-quality is a viable path is a big unlock, and potentially a huge weight off their shoulders.