If I ever start to bellyache about writing one or two novels a year, you have my permission to clock me upside the head with a sturdy two-by-four. I've been reading
Don Hutchison's
The Great Pulp Heroes, and in the chapter about the Shadow, Hutchison reveals the work schedule of Walter Gibson (a.k.a. Maxwell Grant):
Within months The Shadow went from quarterly to monthly, and within a year or two it was selling more than 300,000 copies per issue. Gibson signed yet another contract. The magazine would appear twice a month; he was to produce twenty-four adventures per year, one 60,000-word novel every two weeks for as long as the popularity of the Shadow continues. That figure totaled more than 1,440,000 words per year.
Um... yeah.
The Wheelman? It was barely 53,000 words, not even qualifying for pulp magazine length. And that took me about a year, on and off, to finish. I'm such a pulp wuss.
If I ever start to bellyache about writing one or two novels a year, you have my permission to clock me upside the head with a sturdy two-by-four. I've been reading Don Hutchison's The Great Pulp Heroes, and in the chapter about the Shadow, Hutchison reveals the work schedule of Walter Gibson (a.k.a. Maxwell Grant):
I hear ya.
ReplyDeleteI've been struggling with this POS WIP for three years. The old school guys like Dutch Leonard crank out quality at a rate that is stunning.
If you think back to the times these guys were writing in, it's not so unreasonable that they were cranking out the words so fast. They were living in a time where if they didn't get the words on paper, there was no food on the table. It's a great incentive to keep you butt in the chair and your fingers on the keys. They were actually making a living with their writing -- it was their day job. :-))
ReplyDeleteIf you think Grant was fast, check out the biography of Max Brand (who along with the Westerns he's best know for also wrote some pretty good crime novels). Now that's an ultra-productive writer.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Lippard was also as prolific, writing a million words per year for ten years straight (he only stopped this prodigous output by dying). And this is in the 1840s-50s. He didn't even have the benefit of a typewriter. He was still using a quill pen! Lippard used to employ a clerk whose main job was to make sure Lippard's cigars stayed lit. When you're in such a writing frenzy, nothing can stop you.
ReplyDeleteIf I only I had someone to maintain my pipe (and cigars and cigarettes) while I wrote, I'm sure I'd be cranking out a million per year. Time to put these kids of mine to work!
Good point, Sandra. But even if starvation were a factor, I'm not sure I could match Grant's daily output. At one point, Hutchison says that Grant could crank out a Shadow novel (again, this is 60,000 words) in four to six days. Spot me six days, and that still means 10,000 words a day. My personal record--and this is pushing me to the edge of sanity, where I start to hallucinate and stuff--is a little over 5,000 words. So I guess I could technically write a 60,000 word novel in 12 days, but I'd also be checking into a nice hotel with puffy walls for a while.
ReplyDeleteGuys like James Reasoner and Bob Randisi are still producing at a Gibson-like level.
ReplyDeleteMy head hurts just thinking about it. I had no idea until this very moment just how much of a slacker I was.
ReplyDeleteThe best I've done was a novel I ghosted in three months, but I had it completely outlined before I started writing.
ReplyDelete10,000 words a day? My brain would dissolve.
As if all that wasn't enough, let's not forget that it took them way longer to actually fix a mistake during the writing process than it does for us now.
ReplyDeleteFor them, it was stop, white out, blow, wait, blow, take two drags of the cigarette, blow, sip some coffee, blow again, and then type.
For us it's backspace, rewrite. Or shift down, highlight, ctrl-x. No stopping, no blowing, no waiting, and, due to those damn “Truth” commercials, no smoking.
By the way, I didn't mean for this to smack of court testimony for The Case of the Hooker in Broad Daylight - but, hey, you gotta get it where you can, you know what I'm saying...
how bout simenon? 60 pages and 3 women a day.
ReplyDelete