Writing Secrets of the World’s Most Prolific Authors

Alexander Byrne

Nicely written and quite insightful. Outside of essay writing, I'm a slow writer of fiction. Opinions are easier to vomit onto a page than crafting the ideal chapter.

llywrch

Funny you didn't mention William Shakespeare. He wrote some 37 plays (his hand has been detected in a few more), & a couple of collections of poems in his lifetime -- all to make a living. Yes, Hamlet & King Lear were written for filthy lucre! Nevertheless, Shakespeare is considered by most experts the greatest playwright & poet of the English language. Makes you wonder what delicate snowflake some literary critics would prefer to have at the apex of the English literary pantheon.

This doesn't mean that some prolific writers, like Earle Stanley Gardiner, weren't hacks. It just means that if one writes a lot of material, & for money, that author should be considered with the same disinterested seriousness as someone with an MFA & tenure at a prestigious university.

CreativeMarauder

You've got a sale. I'm a big believer in emulating the behavior of the successful.

Your 53 books also sounds quite impressive (and I know you're a great writer). It at least puts you up there with Stephen King whom you mentioned in terms of volume. A year and a half working on a novel for me and feels like I've spent all this time wandering in circles in the desert... Though I know that with each abandoned draft I am getting closer to the promised land.