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I used to
follow the “three-pages-a-day” maxim as a writer and thought I was
doing okay. Most wannabe writers average that quotidian output (at
least, that’s what I hear from writer’s circles and other groups
that I haunt for company and when my battered authorly ego needs
emotional, unconditional hugs). I had a day job that exercised my
left brain and three pages a day was a good balance to harness the
right side of my grey cell repository. Or so I thought. Then I
looked at what it took to get published – like competing in the
Olympics these days, because there is no more room left for
mediocrity; some publishers, especially small guys, fail because a
single book bombs. And how long do Olympic athletes practice to make
it to the Games, let alone win medals? Ten years? With an average of
five hours per day of practice? Allowing for weekends and holidays
off, that would be about five hours x 220 days x 10 years = 11,000
hours
So let’s do the
math backwards now. Three pages a day takes about an hour to write
(if you go longer, you are probably editing, or writing a lot of
crap). So I would need 11,000 working days (writers take weekends
and holidays off too to recharge) – that would be 50 years! I’d be a
posthumous writer! And that too, only if my progeny do not forget to
publish the manuscripts sitting as part of their inheritance! Given
how paltry that inheritance will be, they may be apt to burn those
damned papers that I laboured over so much instead of doing a real
job and earning my estate some real money.
The unfortunate message I have for all you wannabe writers
is – crank up the gas and keep writing, if you want to see your
books in print before you die (self-publishing excluded, of course).
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