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How Do Some Folks Produce So Much So Quickly?

dejanmikic

dejanmikic

Abominable Snowman
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After it took me a couple of hours to revise my old CV (that ran for few pages in its entirety) it came to my mind: how did Tolkien and Adams manage to complete and type/write their masterpieces in their lifetimes?? Consider the early works, prototypes, drafts.... Where did they find the time? And on top of that to have spouses, kids, go to toilet... How?
 
I don't know about those specific authors but having a wife to do most of the childcare, cleaning, shopping, cooking etc has helped a lot of male authors in the past. No wife? Housekeeper or cleaner then.
Wife or paid assistant to type up manuscripts, notes, research.

Not all of course, but a lot of successful people have a small army behind them.
 
dejanmikic said:
After it took me a couple of hours to revise my old CV (that ran for few pages in its entirety) it came to my mind: how did Tolkien and Adams manage to complete and type/write their masterpieces in their lifetimes?? Consider the early works, prototypes, drafts.... Where did they find the time? And on top of that to have spouses, kids, go to toilet... How?
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Tolkien badgered away year on year, he likely wasn't distracted by TV and certainly not the web either. He didn't publish that much Middle Earth related stuff in his lifetime and I don't know what percentage of the enormous wads of posthumous stuff is him or his son. Douglas Adams was famously lazy or at least a procrastinator, he didn't write much. There are far more prolific authors than either of them, though Tolkien was also an academic and produced papers.
 
dejanmikic said:
After it took me a couple of hours to revise my old CV (that ran for few pages in its entirety) it came to my mind: how did Tolkien and Adams manage to complete and type/write their masterpieces in their lifetimes?? Consider the early works, prototypes, drafts.... Where did they find the time? And on top of that to have spouses, kids, go to toilet... How?
Click to expand...
It is massively time sucking tweaking your CV for every application making sure of key words then finding once you upload it for a job it turns out you have to register through an intermediary HR organisation first, then you have to fill in an online form replicating your CV which they still want plus a perfectly tuned cover letter.

to so tedious.
 
dejanmikic said:
After it took me a couple of hours to revise my old CV (that ran for few pages in its entirety) it came to my mind: how did Tolkien and Adams manage to complete and type/write their masterpieces in their lifetimes?? Consider the early works, prototypes, drafts.... Where did they find the time? And on top of that to have spouses, kids, go to toilet... How?
Click to expand...
I have this problem too. I am defeated by the amount of time I'd have to spend writing in order to get a novel written.
I need to learn a method of typing MUCH faster.
I am impressed by people who can knock out several books a year.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I have this problem too. I am defeated by the amount of time I'd have to spend writing in order to get a novel written.
I need to learn a method of typing MUCH faster.
I am impressed by people who can knock out several books a year.
Click to expand...

As opposed to Stephen King, who writes pretty much the same book over and over again.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
As opposed to Stephen King, who writes pretty much the same book over and over again.
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He found a formula and stuck to it.
Some writers do that.
I wouldn't like to keep regurgitating the same book.
 
You can be like James Patterson who comes up with the ideas and then other people do the writing - that's how he managed 147 novels since 1976 (although he may have written some more since I started this post). I read one of his books once and I think it took longer to read it than it did to write it.

Patterson has been criticized for co-authoring many of his books[28] and for being more of a brand that focuses on making money than an artist who focuses on his craft.[29]

In an interview for USA Weekend, Stephen King referred to Patterson as "a terrible writer but he's very successful."[30] King also implied, while being asked on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert about how many hours it takes him to write a book, that Patterson needed only 12 hours for two books, noting he and Patterson had "a mutual respect – sort of".[31]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Patterson
 
When writing is your day job, you can't be too picky about your output.
 
12 hours? To write a book?
Only if you're wealthy.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I am impressed by people who can knock out several books a year.
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exactly!!! I mean how can you write 1000 pages book (S King, George R R M) within such a short period of time? Just the writing/typing of these many pages would take me few years and that is without thinking about what I do ("All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy ...")....
 
Our perception of time alters as we age - the older we get, the 'faster' time literally passes for us.

When one is a child of five years old, one year is 20% of all the time we have existed. One week can seem like an age.

When one is fifty years old one year is now only 2% of all the time we have been alive - hence a year seems to shoot by. Our perception of time when we are fifty is that it passes ten times as fast as when we were five.

I better get writing that novel...
 
dejanmikic said:
exactly!!! I mean how can you write 1000 pages book (S King, George R R M) within such a short period of time? Just the writing/typing of these many pages would take me few years and that is without thinking about what I do ("All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy ...")....
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Because they genuinely don't do it themselves. They have assistants and staff who type things up and fact check and research and write parts for them. As mentioned above , James Patterson has stated he collaborates with other writers and they do the graft and he does the ideas.
Clive Cussler did the same.
Nora Roberts cranked out about 25* novels in 2 years early in her career but these were hardly high literature.
I suppose it depends if one is a writer or a novelist or an author?

*now if you excuse me I have to go and check out the Rookie k-9 unit books
 
AnonyJoolz said:
Our perception of time alters as we age - the older we get, the 'faster' time literally passes for us.
When one is a child of five years old, one year is 20% of all the time we have existed. One week can seem like an age.
When one is fifty years old one year is now only 2% of all the time we have been alive - hence a year seems to shoot by. Our perception of time when we are fifty is that it passes ten times as fast as when we were five.
Click to expand...

See Also:

Time Quirks: Perceived Time Flow Slowing, Stopping Or Speeding Up
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...e-flow-slowing-stopping-or-speeding-up.61924/
 
Mythopoeika said:
I have this problem too. I am defeated by the amount of time I'd have to spend writing in order to get a novel written.
I need to learn a method of typing MUCH faster.
I am impressed by people who can knock out several books a year.
Click to expand...

My cousin, Ian Sutherland has had several novels published. He tells me each one takes 1 1/2 - 2 years to write which doesn't include editing and proofreading.

Stephen King on the other hand writes around 6 pages per day, every day, so he can conceivably write a 360 page novel in 2 months.

I on the other hand started writing a novel in the 1990s and although it is around 3/4 complete I still haven't finished it.
 
AnonyJoolz said:
Our perception of time alters as we age - the older we get, the 'faster' time literally passes for us.

When one is a child of five years old, one year is 20% of all the time we have existed. One week can seem like an age.

When one is fifty years old one year is now only 2% of all the time we have been alive - hence a year seems to shoot by. Our perception of time when we are fifty is that it passes ten times as fast as when we were five.

I better get writing that novel...
Click to expand...

When I was little I can recall my favourite TV programmes, such as Lost in Space, would conclude with "To be continued: same time, same channel, next week."
A week felt like an unbearably long time back then.
Now, especially under lockdown conditions, it just goes in a blink.
 
Thread re-titled. "Time Quickening" didn't really reflect the OP's theme or follow-on discussion.
 
And how on earth did said great authors also find the time to write letters? Just to make an example, think of Mozart: in addition to his musical work, he left a huge amount of letters to friends and relatives. (some very funny, too)
 
Two writers spring to mind

Micheal Moorcock - Eternal Champion series in the early 70's most books are about 180 pages long. He'd knock out a book a night/ a couple of days "On a bottle of Scotch"* - but I suspect other stuff helped him as well. You've got to say the quality was pretty good once he'd stopped focusing on funding his magazine.

Nick Redfern - writes huge amounts of stuff. He gets up at 6 in the morning and does 8 hours a day - writing. It's a formula and a very good work ethic. No matter what you think of the content.

I reduced hours a few years back temporarily, I needed to study and once I did I would do ANYTHING not to work or study. To the point where I went back to fulltime work to get my shit sorted.


During Covid my wife took over my mancave and turned it in an office - no problem if anything her productivity increased. It's not my space anymore it's an office. She doesn't need to travel.

She gets up and her routine is the same when she was at work apart from the travel - no fucking about. I don't know how she does it. I just want to arse about if I 'm at home. I can't do this work from home - I'll go and grab the remote for 5 minutes and watch Family Guy repeats again and again. I need to be at work hands-on doing stuff.



*I'm quoting from memory so could be wrong.
 
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