On Productivity

Hi everybody, and happy Post-Release-Day Day! (That's a holiday, as of now. It's official.) Got a really good question from a reader and I figured I'd put up the answer here, in the hopes of being helpful to any struggling writer-folk. They wanted to know how I manage to maintain a prolific output while keeping quality high.

Well, the answer is quite simple. I'm actually not a writer at all. Daniel's adventures show up in my mailbox once every couple of months, written out in a fevered longhand, and the return address is an empty lot in Utah where an insane asylum burned to the ground fifty years ago. I just type the notebooks up nicely and format for print.

(Or there's the alternate theory: that I'm an employee of the Southern Tropics Import-Export Corporation, and these books are just a sneaky way of getting you used to the idea of an infernal takeover years before it happens, so you won't panic when it all goes down. Would YOU tell Caitlin and Emma that you can't meet a deadline? They don't understand that "cracking the whip" is supposed to be metaphorical...)

In all seriousness, there are a handful of tricks that get me where I'm going. These are not Earthshattering Secrets of Writing Wisdom, and at least one is super-duper-obvious, but maybe they'll help you look at your own work in a different light.

Discipline (Not the Fun Kind)
Let's do the obvious one first, shall we? Everybody knows that if you don't do the work, the work don't get done. Butt in chair (or standing desk, or treadmill, whatever you're into), fingers on keyboard, brain in high gear. I've never met a successful writer who wrote "whenever they felt like it," or only when the muse struck; do that and you'll never finish anything. The key to success is routine: whether you write for a set period of time every day, hold yourself to a constant word count, or both, every day you write is making it that much easier to do it again the next day.

It's kinda like going to the gym, really. And like the gym, every day you let your discipline slide makes it harder to get back to work. So write every day. Even if you're convinced you're churning out dire crap. Even if you think you'll have to rewrite every single word tomorrow. Do it anyway. And once you're done, be proud of yourself, because that's hard work and you just achieved something cool. Have a cookie. Unless you're going to the gym.

Deadlines
What's that? You're an indie writer? You don't have deadlines, because you work for yourself? Wrong. You work for your readers. And part of the obligation writers owe to their readers (write the best damn stories you can, and always be studying the craft and trying to up your game) is not keeping them waiting. That doesn't mean rushing and compromising your quality. It does mean that every day you go jet-skiing or mountain climbing or playing full-contact air hockey instead of writing, is one more day that your new story is not in your readers' eager hands.

For me, setting a fixed deadline is a great way of training my brain to hit my targets. If I gave myself forever to finish a book, I'd...probably take forever to finish a book. Set a date for the finish line, though, and it flips a little mental switch. Case in point: right now I'm working on the second Revanche Cycle novel, with a deadline of March First. Every day I can sit down, assess my progress on the draft, and see exactly how long it's taken me to get where I am and how much remains to be done. I can set realistic time goals and know how to prioritize the work. Without a deadline, that just turns into a big mishmash of "whenever".

Know Where You're Going
This one is huge, and I wouldn't be able to keep my pace without it. Knowing where you're going starts with an outline. Yes, I know some writers can sit down with a vague idea for a story in their heads, write a whole novel by the seat of their pants, and have it come out both fantastic and on time. I am not one of them. I'm kind of awed by their ability, because it's just beyond me. When I sit down to work, I know exactly what scenes I'll be writing that day and what has to happen to move the story forward; this minimizes writer's block and makes it that much easier to hit my targets, since there's very little "staring at a blank screen, trying to figure out what happens next" timewasting.

An outline doesn't have to be a straitjacket, either! If a better idea spears you mid-chapter, nothing's stopping you from making tweaks or just throwing the whole damn thing out and writing a new one. You're the artist. The outline's a tool in your bag of tricks. As far as detail, that's up to you and the needs of your story. For the Daniel Faust novels, I write a few pages of notes in Scrivener with the plot written out beat by beat. For the Revanche Cycle, I have charts in Scapple. Great, gigantic, tangled-ball-of-yarn charts, one approximating an outline and one to keep track of all the stuff going on behind the scenes that the readers don't see until later.

(Tangent: if you haven't checked out Scrivener and Scapple, a couple of fine products by Literature & Latte, try a demo. Both of them have been fantastic organization and productivity tools for me, and I wouldn't write with anything else.)

For series authors, outlining can go far beyond a single book. I have the next five Faust books in various stages of plotting and almost ready to roll, along with notebook blurbs with rough ideas for at least six more. More importantly, I know where the series is headed. A draft of the last scene of the last book in the series has already been written. However many leagues and however many books stand between here and our final destination, I know what big beats are needed in order to drive the story arcs to the finish line. 

Planning things that far in advance, even just as brief "this is the book where Jose reconciles with his son, we'll figure out how later" sketches, also provides the opportunity to have a little fun. Like, for instance, the easter egg hidden in A Plain-Dealing Villain. Don't go looking for it just yet, because the information needed to spot it is in an upcoming book. Once you see it, though, the implications...well. Spoilers.

(And no, I don't mean Herbert, though at least one sharp-eyed reader has figured out who he is.)

There's a You in Team
There's some truth to the stereotype of writers being solitary creatures, but that doesn't mean you have to go it alone. Writing is a business. Treat it like one, and get help from professionals to do the things that aren't your forte. Editing? Hire a pro. Cover design? Hire a pro. Ebook and print layout? Hire a pro. I use Bookfly Design (represent!) for my editing and art, for example, but there are pros out there at every price level and offering every kind of service you might need.

Time is not money. Time is infinitely more important than money, because money is a renewable resource and time isn't. If you can buy time by bringing on outside help, do it, because there's a good chance you can earn that money back. Let's say, outside the actual writing, it takes my team two months to get a book ready for sale. Even if I could do all the things they do, to a professional level of quality (I can't, not by a long shot), that'd be two months of doing things other than writing. That's a lot of stories never getting told, and a lot of lost revenue too. In that light, can you afford not to hire professional help?

You're a writer. Focus on being the best writer you can, and giving your readers the best experience you can deliver. That's the important part. Everything else, you can outsource -- and get more time for writing.

That's all for now. Take care, and have a happy Post-Release-Day Day celebration.