New Voices Good Stories discussion

Jeez people! I've been up to my digits in writing this year. Instead of doing one new book every other year, my "normal" speed, I decided that for 2014 I was going to grind out two new books. Yeah, that's "two" with a "2" books. Over two hundred thousand words. Yeah, I keep track of written words, too. I keep a daily log. Sort of a cattle prod for me.

Anyway, I wanted to see if I could do a book every six months. Well, here it is the end of November and my second book of 2014, "Silently Forever" is done and currently available in print form; Kindle version to follow.

Now I'm not bragging. Actually I'm complaining. Spending the time necessary to pound out a couple of mysteries has cut out my writers' time, you know, the time writers spend browsing author's websites, reading forums, kicking around ideas; all that stuff we do to avoid actually writing. So now I have that second book done and I thought I'd jump on one of my favorite discussion boards (this one) and catch up on what everyone else has been doing and lo and behold, either everyone else has been similarly engaged writing two or three novels or nobody has much to say!

So I thought I'd try and stimulate a little conversation. Anybody want to share how much writing they actually get done in a year? In words or completed books? And you grinders, the ones that can churn out a new novel every month, tell us how you do that. Are you chained to your computer? Have a secretary following you around that takes down every word you breathe? Have a guy with a black mask and whip glare at you while you write? Snort coke? What? Spill it!

Oh, and by the way. I have a giveaway running for "Silently Forever" on Goodreads right now and plan on posting sample chapters soon as well. Check it out. It's my first try at writing a female sleuth mystery. Let me know how badly I bungled it.

I just completed NaNoWriMo. Pulling off 50K words in a month is difficult, but it works for me. Guy Kawasaki (recently finished an excellent book on self publishing called APE) said that the best way for him to write a book was to "barf it out." And I think that works for me pretty well.

I spend the rest of my time in re-writes, additions (50K does not a novel make), reorgs, as needed.

I'm shooting for a book a year. I think I could do more than that if I didn't have other non-writing jobs.

Wow! 50,000 words in a month! 38,000 is the most I've ever done in a month and I felt like the Count of Monte Cristo - digging my way out of a concrete prison with a spoon. I would've quit after 20,000 words but it took me that extra 18,000 words to pick the lock on my shackles. Didn't take me long to recover though, once the whip lashes across my back healed... Now I prefer shorter sentences. Little play on words there.