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How Do Some Folks Produce So Much So Quickly?

I think there’s merit in it. I am a Tolkien fan and of course, being a man of his time, he didn’t do the domestic stuff, and that left him a great deal of time to enter the ‘zone’, to work undisturbed for long stretches. Out of these stretches comes creativity, invention. I believe that it’s true that many people who wrote books in older times tended to be not actually poor — and had had enough education to be able to read and write of course. I read about this, but it’s a few years ago, so don’t take my word for it, but it was interesting, and made me think. Also the women tended to be unmarried or even nuns because = more time. Well, I have no kids, and I can vouch for that! J.K Rowling may be an outlier, but she was at least on benefits not having to literally beg or scrape for food.

It’s the time that is needed, and although money can be a drive, I think it’s obviously going to be easier when you aren’t worried about where the next check is coming from or whether you can afford to feed yourself/kids etc. And when you have support. Stephen King’s wife liked his work, supported him, was a sounding board and his first reader. Such things help.
 
Fanari_Lloyd,

Good points, but I was thinking more along the lines of a phenomena that is often seen when a family member, particularly if it is the wife, retires and is now home all the time.

If the husband has retired earlier (possibly older) and has become used to having the house to himself for most of the day, the wife can become a big distraction.
Suddenly there is someone there who will demand your attention. And may not like you spending your time as you did previously.
Be it writing of maybe some other hobby.

And the effect can be quite soul- destroying for someone who has to re-jig his (her) life and possibly relinquish some occupation they previously enjoyed.
 
Frideswide said:
@XEPER_ Have you commented here? :)
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I've been writing for the past seven years. I usually manage a full novel plus a novella or short story every year. I also do most of the cooking and housework in my house, as well as playing with the kids.
However, I have no social life! For the first 4 or 5 years I would write in the evening after work, and at the weekends. Now I only do the day job part time, so I have more time to write.
Really though, I am able to write so much because I don't go out to the pub, or out with friends, and I don't really play Xbox games much or anything like that. I play some guitar and write, that's my hobbies and, luckily, one of those actually makes me money now. :)
This year I'm finishing off a novel right now, will write a novella in a different series in the autumn and, thanks to lockdown, wrote a novelette in May. I also have another novel about a Roman slave girl which comes out on Kindle and paperback in October, but I didn't write that this year, it was bought by Audible and has been exclusively available on that platform for a year so...It might LOOK like I wrote two novels, a novelette and a novella in one year come this winter, but it's not really true...
Here's everything I've written since 2013 https://amzn.to/2AoUGT7
And here's the cover art for my forthcoming novel!

The Northern Throne smaller.jpg
 
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It might make a difference if you actually have room — like a spare room where you can lock yourself away whether or not someone is there all the time. I definitely wrote more when I had a spare room for it. I get on fine with my partner, and there’s an ‘easy silence’ between us, but I’m aware he’s ‘around’, and while he can go into a game and be oblivious, I cannot be oblivious of the noise in the background.

I don’t do the social thing either (even before lockdown) Even when I was early 20’s my favourite thing was to come home from work, eat, have a bath, then settle down with a glass of wine to write for a couple of hours. Going out couldn’t match that!
 
If you visit Mark Twain's house, you'll get the story of how he kept trying to find a place to put his writing desk in order to be productive. I think it finally worked facing away from the window on the top floor he had mostly to himself. There is merit to a big house. I long for a she-shed in the yard to retreat to but can't have it.

I second the point about silence. We don't have enough quiet in the world today. People can't think let alone write. I find noise-canceling headphones to be a necessity at work where I have to read and write technical and legal documents all day. When I get home, I have to turn my brain off and just can't get even blog posts out like I used to. I wonder what it will be like when I retire and can replace this time and energy with personal writing.
 
Sharon Hill said:
I second the point about silence. We don't have enough quiet in the world today. People can't think let alone write.
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Yes, this, absolutely. I do know people who write well to music, which I can understand although I can’t, but myself need the quiet. Wind outside, rain, yes, natural sounds are fine.

A she-shed! All things being equal what with the virus, we’re looking to have a conservatory built on which will be my ‘writing place.’ Fingers crossed.
 
Depending on my mood and type of task(s) I sometimes prefer working with music in the background / headphones.

However, this only applies to purely instrumental music. I generally don't work well when vocals snag my attention with words.
 
Back in the '80s I wrote a novel called Beyond the Maelstrom, which was a sequel to Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. In its original form it was slightly longer than Moby Dick. I wrote it all in longhand, typed the first draft, typed the second draft, and when I finally entered the computer age, I keyed it into the computer. It seemed effortless. I recall that feeling came mainly from a) having a steady job I thought I'd have forever, and b) all of eternity stretched out before me, and I'd write everything eventually. Now -- I've only worked 4 1/2 years out of the last five, jobs seem unobtainable, and time does not stretch out forever. And other factors weigh me down -- I've watched the phone out of the corner of my eye since 1998, expecting a call announcing some other life-altering family disaster whenever it rings. O, to recapture the magic!

Even at my best, I was slowed down by the fact that I'm apparently the world's slowest reader. People point to all the novels they've read in a series . . . I'd admit I read the first one -- in 1986. So much of writing requires reading, both for research and for exposure to styles and flavors. I've always felt guilty when reading, too -- in my family, if you have time to read, you must need something to do! My father has been dead ten years, and every time I pick up as book I feel like he (or some Ingsoc-like authority) is going to pound on the door and kick me out on the street.

I've known people who have the whole book in their heads and just have to type it down. I have a vague idea how a story or novel should go, but most of the time I don't know how my next sentence is going to go. That I won't change -- it's more fun to be surprised!

And I STILL write in longhand. I've tried to compose straight onto the computer for 20 years. It ain't happening. I know someone who could compose straight onto a mechanical typewriter, back when that was all they had -- I can't even imagine . . .
 
There are a few authors whose Collected Works become canonical: Shakespeare and Dickens do pretty well on the Eng. Lit. side of things.

Even so, only a few of their works are in the mainstream, revived time after time.

Of the rest, their works are winnowed by time, according to whether they ever made it to set-book status on a course. A bit depressing.

Then there are all the others. Library-worms, I am one, will admit to the melancholy which comes with the awareness of so many unread or unheard things.

Even the Greats are not immune to oblivion: a whole website is devoted to "The Unknown Beethoven!" Hundreds of versions of the official Nine Symphonies have been recorded but we have to turn to MIDI, or small concerns if we want to hear the 6th - or 7th! - Piano Concertos and the 10th Symphony.

Brisk Darwinians will reassure the complacent that what has survived is what was fit. Feminists, Ethnics and Gays will direct us to stuff which was wilfully excluded from the canon of Dead White Men. The horrid truth is that what gets read - or performed - at all is a tiny percentage of what gets written.

This is a thread about productivity but that is a term weighted in favour of machines. Verdi looked back on his galley-years, when he was required to produce three or four operas a year. Rossini retired as soon as he could from such a life, contenting himself with a pleasant Mass and a few sins of old age. Few could! Few can! :frust:
 
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I agree - an empty house makes it so much easier to be productive and creative. But I always listen to black metal when I'm writing and I have a study now so I can just lock myself away and hide in my little bubble. Even if I'm in a busy room full of screaming kids, if I put headphones on and listen to black metal (it's like white noise basically) I can tune out and forget where I am so it's possible to write.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Depending on my mood and type of task(s) I sometimes prefer working with music in the background / headphones.

However, this only applies to purely instrumental music. I generally don't work well when vocals snag my attention with words.
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Yes, stuff with catchy hooks - Def Leppard for example - or simple guitar riffs like "Smoke On The Water", or simple rhythms like AC/DC are distracting. I either want to sing along, air drum, or pick up a guitar and forget writing. That's why I always choose black metal - harsh screaming, little to no melody, drum beats that are all over the place and Gregorian chants dropped in occasionally to add to the atmosphere...Perfect!
 
amarok2005 said:
And I STILL write in longhand. I've tried to compose straight onto the computer for 20 years. It ain't happening. I know someone who could compose straight onto a mechanical typewriter, back when that was all they had -- I can't even imagine . . .
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I used to write in longhand for years, up until about 2001, and still a bit after. There was something thrilling about a new writing pad and a really good pen and all that paper waiting to be filled. A real sense of adventure. I used to throw away bag after bag of it though, as I ended up with no room. It would fall out of cupboards from files onto my head.

There seems to be a difference (to me) writing longrand and typing onto a monitor. Longhand seemed to give me more time for the sentence to arrange (or rearrange) itself behind my pen, typing is more instant (knock it out and tart it up later) I’m still not sure which I prefer.

I've known people who have the whole book in their heads and just have to type it down. I have a vague idea how a story or novel should go, but most of the time I don't know how my next sentence is going to go. That I won't change -- it's more fun to be surprised!

I’ve known the entire story just once, but even then I likened it to walking down a long street regularly lit by street lamps but with pools of shadow in between — those shadowy parts were waiting to be navigated. I’d rather let characters grow than force them through a series of plot points. I like it when you think: ‘Okay, I never saw that coming!’
 
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