Draft in a Month
November 28, 1999
5:30 a.m.
Lisa and I were talking some time ago about our relationship, and what it means to the rest of our lives. We were married while we were still in college, you see--and I think we've both grown up a lot since then. We were married singles then. We're not that way now. One of the things that ties us together is our ability and our desire to talk about things like that, like our relationship and how it affects everything else we do. I told her back then that our marriage has done wonders for my performance at work. This, I think, took her back a bit. "Why?" she said. "Well, it's like this. I know you love me--and now I know that means it doesn't really matter what I do anywhere else, you'll still love me." "That's true," she muttered, leading my explanation on. "So, it gives me the power and fortitude I need to always argue from the perspective that I think is right for the product. Even in the most messy political battles, I survive, and progress my career because people know I want what's best for the product, no matter what." And that's really what I think. When I argue from a philosophically correct position, it's really hard to "win" an argument with me. And knowing that Lisa's behind me no matter what makes it more than easy to keep my sense of "rightness" around me. Others may, of course, argue that my sense of rightness is wrong--to them, I say that I've yet to work on an unsuccessful technical project. (but I digress). So, Ron, I hear you saying, what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? If you haven't read Stephen Leigh's entry of November 26th, I suggest you read it before jumping into this one. Assuming that there will be people who won't read Stephen's piece, though, I'll paraphrase it first. He has been reading several pages that are talking about the novel in a month dare, and he's scratching his head and basically saying "You guys are completely out of your mind." He says were on the wrong track--that writing is about quality and taking your time rather than drafty bursts of speed. He sent me an e-mail suggesting I was free to whack away at his premise. The problem, of course, is that Stephen is right. He's arguing from a position that is philosophically correct, and I agree with him. You should put as much work into a piece as it requires to make it the best you can make it. It's an easy position to argue from because it's right. So let's be real--the effort is a draft in a month. The effort is meant to light a fire under you, to make filling blank pages a challenge, to make it fun. A couple years ago, I started an effort within my team to develop a software feature in a single day (it usually takes us 3-4 months). We kicked off at 8:00, and worked through the night. The team got fired up, we spent weeks planning it, looking at our process at carving fat--finding ways to do things easier, finding the pressure points that drove lag time. unfortunately, we didn't finish in a single day. We got maybe 60% of the way through, and realized the code was getting too complicated (we had estimated a 4 input feature, and it turned out to be an 11 input feature--go figure). But the team had fun. Everyone was involved, and our blood got to pumping, and we got about two month's progress finished in a twenty-four hour span. We lost nothing and gained much. Sometimes I think you need to throw abandon into the wind. Sometimes you need to know whether you can do it or not. And that's a good reason to do a draft in a month. But there are others. Stephen says he doesn't know anyone who works like that--a novel in a month, and ship it. I don't suggest that it be mailed the day of "completion." Let's be serious, again. But, I will argue a bit with Stephen's statement. There are a lot of fast writers out there. Yes, I come from the L. Ron Hubbard school, and I think that aura hurts me here. People don't like to hear that you can write fast, and write at least pretty good. But it can happen. Dickens apparently wrote maniacally fast, as did Shakespeare. Last I saw, those guys are still fairly well-known writers. You want contemporary? Well, Dean Koontz is known for being massively prolific, and supposedly wrote a novel in something like four days once. I'll admit I don't know that that story is true, but I've heard it a time or two from people that know Mr. Koontz, so I'm not going to totally discount it. "Our genre?" Well, I did a quick scan of a few SF Site pages. Here's what I found" Asimov, of course. 500 books in 72 years of life comes to about six and a half books a year during the time he drew breath. I'm pretty suire he didn't write much those first few years. Bottom line, a book published every two months of his life. And we're not counting short work. I hear it. I hear it. "But, Ron, let's not talk about SF God's, okay?" Let's try Jane Yolen, then. Over 150 books published. Ms. Yolen is not an old woman, and as far as quality goes, she's got the awards and reputation to discount any concerns there. Or there's the notorious Kevin J. Anderson, who is my age and has 41 novels, 6 anthologies, and 25 graphic novels to his credit. He didn't start publishing until the late eighties, I think. Yeah, I know Kevin has a reputation for turning the crank. "His work can't be any good," I hear people say. But, you know, his work has been on a few award ballots here and there. We'll not get into what award mean. How about Lawrence Watt Evans. In 19 years he's published 27 books and 87 short stores. Walter Jon Williams, 20 books and 40 short works in eighteen years. Roger McBride Allen, eighteen books in 9 years. Charles Sheffield, 27 novels, 6 collections, and 101 short stories in 20 years. These are working writers, you know? These are folks that make their living writing speculative fiction. And they aren't even all the names I could come up with. Dave Wolverton will commit a million words of published material this year. Kris Rusch advocates writing a draft in a month, then rewriting it in 3 weeks. The reason? She can hold a story in her head for that long, and keep it fresh. Dean Smith discusses similar approaches. Harlan Ellison, of course gave his infamous quote when asked about his prolificity. "If I were a plumber, would your mind boggle that I had fixed 10,000 toilets? I'm a writer. That's what I do." Yeah, I've paraphrased his quote, too. I'm not looking it up. This is a journal, not a piece of literary journalism. The point is that there are a lot of people making a pretty good living on the written word. And when I look at them, I see one thing in common--the ability to produce publishable work in a short period of time. They each have something else in common, too. Each of them has been nominated for major awards, and a majority have won them. Fast will generally equal bad. I can't disagree with that. But it doesn't have to. The bottom line with the novel in a month is that Stephen is right--it's a draft. It's the writer throwing a lump of clay down, and beginning to work it into something that he may or may not like. It took me five years to write my first novel. The "first draft" took about a year. I hate it. And, to be honest, it's a pretty bad book. I wrote a draft of my second novel in a month. The novel is not complete because I haven't had time to go make it work the way I want to, or more correctly, I haven't decided that I want to do a genetic engineering thriller at this point, so I haven't made the time to do it. But the good thing is that I know exactly what I want out of that story. And, I had a great time writing the draft. And it only took me a month (a far site better return than my first attempt at committing novel). I wrote the first draft of my third novel in a month. It was a bad draft, but a good story. I had a great time writing it. The rewrite took three weeks. Covering Lisa's copyedit took another two weeks. It was "on the market" for a cycle, and received a "nice" rejection. Then I read it again. I think a writer will tinker with their work at any time if given the chance. This is the book I've been rewriting the past couple weeks. Yes, I'm changing some stuff--I could have done better if I had taken more time. But then, I would say that of every story I've published. Of course, Stephen can argue that since I'm not really done, you can't stop the clock on the development cycle. He's right, of course. But mostly, the benefit I'm getting out of doing it again right now is that I'm going to write the second book of this series in a few days. The story will be fresh with me. The second book will be better for my last few week's effort. I like this book, though. I think it will sell, and I think people that read and like traditional fantasy will enjoy it. I'm honestly not sure what else to expect in a book. So, yeah. Draft in a month. Rewrite in three weeks. Copyedit in two weeks. Call it a novel in a quarter. Fair enough. That's still only four books in a year. So at that rate, I'll have to write for 120 years to match Asimov. The good thing here is that Lisa will love me whether I catch him or not, you know?   Trying to finish the rewrite today. Have a good one. Many Thanks to Shannon Wendt for her award   Great. Now he's comparing himself to Asimov! Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"I'm getting so tired of defending myself." Kevin J, Anderson while talking about fast writers at a WotF breakfast  Ethics for the New Millennnium |
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