I was involved in the desperate business of trying to wrest a living out of free-lance fiction for magazines... During those first four months of effort, I wrote about 800,000 words of unsalable manuscript, all in short-story form. This is the equivalent of ten average novels. Had I done a novel a year, it would have taken me ten years to acquire the precision and facility I acquired in four months.—John D. MacDonald in The House Guests (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1965)
(Eighth in a series.)
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5 comments:
Damn. Those are some serious numbers. I don't think I'll ever complain about anything again in my life.
This is a fine series, Duane. Thanks.
I agree with that method, I believe it was Brian K Vaughan who said you had 100,000 crappy words in you, and so to be a serious author you have to get those crappy words out, and out of the way. Once that is done you will have learnt a lot and you can move on to writing better, and hopefully even more.
I know that over time my writing has grown better (I think) but I know that I had to write some of my earlier pieces, be they short stories, novel beginnings or comic scripts, just to continue to learn the form and art of it all.
Question, Duane, did you go through a period of 'learning' to write, and if so, what sort of stuff did you write that didn't see publication? You know what, I think a blog about this would be most insightful, cheers!
As I recall it was James Ellroy who said that he was advised to write a series character, and created Lloyd Hopkins... and that it was really the writing of the three Hopkins books that taught him how to write a novel.
In my humble opinion, John D. MacDonald will always remain the best writer of mysteries. He was King of the World during the late sixties, seventies, and eighties. I've been to Fort Lauderdale looking for Travis McGee and the Busted Flush, and still can't find them.
Hey, was that the "Ed Gorman" who posted a comment on here yesterday?
Duane, you have some damn serious fans!!! See, great talent attracts great talent.
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