I write 1 book a year.
That’s 1 book from first draft to polished manuscript.
Throw in cover art, formatting, and pre-orders and you have my last published book, Empire of Sand, which sent me into a massive burnout.
I haven’t published anything since, but it’s not like I’m sitting around knitting afghans. Okay, I might have tried my hand at macrame but that doesn’t strengthen my case. Um… Cue aggravated New Yorker accent: I’m working here! I’m privately cranking out titles like a diligent writer.
1 book/year from draft to published product. Pretty good, right?
I used to think so.
If you asked me when I started out… when I lacked a comprehensive grasp on past vs. present tense… when I included a problematic bum fight in my story (yikes!)…
1 book/year = GOALS and ASPIRATIONS.
Considering that exalted authors like Harper Lee only wrote 1 novel (okay 2 books, but I kind of want to forget the latter one) in her career, 1 book/year is pretty prolific.
Except it’s not. Not anymore.
When I got into indie publishing, it was the norm to publish 4 titles/year, a book every season. That was considered enough to keep the Amazon algorithm happy. Nowadays I’ve seen some superhuman cases of a publishing 1 book/month.
Okay. 4 books/year is a tall order but not impossible. I can handle it. I would rather not, but if the cool kids are doing it, I could cut sleep out of my life and toss my hat in the ring.
Maybe daydreaming and stargazing are just as important as hustling and girlbossing.
-TY
1 book/month? Are you trying to kill me? My simple mind can’t churn out stories that fast. Sorry. Wait. Not sorry.
Is it me or is our American culture obsessed with productivity?
I’m speaking from the confines of my bookish industry but I’ve been guilty of drinking the Kool-Aid of online productivity gurus.
How do I 10X my time?
How do I spend every waking moment of my life in constant production?
How do I feed the content mills?
Every day I’m not hustling or writing or checking off something from my endless To-Do list, I feel GUILT!
I’m a wastrel!
A loser amongst a horde of hyper productive super humans.
Well, you know what?
Maybe it’s okay to take it slow?
Maybe daydreaming and stargazing are just as important as hustling and girlbossing.
In fact, some of the best moments in my writing arrived while I was lazing about like a cat on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
And maybe, just maybe, my worth is not tied to how much I can produce or how many items I can check off my to-do list.
If the algorithm is hungry for more content…
Let it starve.
I’ve got a date with a daydream and it’s going to be a good one.
