I still have a full-time day job, which is why it took me five years to write An Ear to the Ground, and why I won't have another book finished by next week.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I often meet frustrated young writers who say they've only got so far and just can't finish a book. Even if you don't happen to use what you've worked on that day, it has taught you something and you'll be amazed when you might come back to it and use it again.
Writing a book is such a full-time job. If you're away for a few days, you have to start again.
For a very long time, I wrote a book a year, and was eager and willing to do it, to put bread on the table, to have my work out there. Now I must write a book every two years, and that's never enough time, either.
When I'm in the midst of finishing a book, I can be working around the clock.
I can do a book in three months if I spend all day, seven days a week at it and, in fact, I work better that way.
I only did about one novel a year while I was working full time, but since 1993, I've averaged two and a half books a year.
I still get up every morning at 4 A.M. I write seven days a week, including Christmas. And I still face a blank page every morning, and my characters don't really care how many books I've sold.
It was the case for a number of years that I was doing a book a year, but that was back when I was part-time teaching - and since 1991, I've been a parent, so that cuts into the time!
If you're going to write a book that might, in its very best accidental career, sell 30,000 copies, you've got to have a day job.
I wrote each book in thirty-five days flat - just to get the darned thing finished.