Writers Unbound

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. - Thomas Mann

Trivia Library has an interesting little page on the 20 Most Prolific Writers in Literary History. In number one position is Mary Faulkner, who produced 904 books in her 70-year life. Assuming she probably didn’t begin writing books until after adolescence, say, around 20 years old, then she produced an average of 18 books a year for 50 years.

The most well-known name on the list is Alexandre Dumas; he produced a mere 277 books in his 68-year life. Assuming the same starting age as Faulkner, that’s still more than 5 books a year. And I’d venture to say that Dumas’s work is of a slightly higher caliber than Mary Faulkner’s.

And then there’s me (and possibly you). “Ten articles by the end of the week?” I whine. “That’s impossible!” I want more jobs, but when I get more jobs, I panic because how am I going to keep up with all the jobs? And in keeping up with all the jobs, how am I going to find time to work on my own novel, my poetry, my non fiction masterpiece?

We blame time, obligations, our “real” jobs, family duties, the broken computer, the library’s lame hours. (”They close at 6:00 pm. Who can do research before 8:00 pm?”) Distractions and obstacles have been part of the writing life long before our days of two-hour commutes and internet information overload. Consider this: Dumas wrote his 277 books without a computer or typewriter. By hand.

The key to becoming prolific is deciding, first, that you need to be prolific in order to be successful. Of course, this leads us to the standard question: what is success? Is success the production of 200 novels of fluff or 1 novel of depth, promise, questions, and true experience? How about the production of 200 novels of depth, promise, questions, and true experience?

You’ll have to define your own success, but here is mine: Success as a writer is when I, through my writing, reach people and make money. Writing is a calling, for me, and its primary purpose is to tell people what I see and hear and think and wonder, to share my experience in hope of helping them have greater vision, deeper understanding, and better lives. It takes a lot of audacity to think that what I can say might accomplish that rigmarole; still, it’s what I want to do and it’s worth trying.

Then there’s the money angle. I need to make money. I must eat. I must pay for this internet access. And making a fair wage for one’s work is a good thing; it’s how economies are built and people step out of poverty. Money is tricky, though, and if I were writing solely to make money, I would be doing different writing than I am now. So it’s a part of what I call success, but it is the secondary purpose. We must acknowledge money as a real, necessary part of writing, but not as the primary motive for it.

To reach people and make money with what I write means that I need to write. The more I write, the greater the chances that something I have written will 1) be read and accomplish something and 2) sell in a legitimate writing market. Prolificacy is not necessary to success, but it certainly helps my chances.