Speed

No, not the movie.

No, not the drug.

I'm talking about writing speed. I mean, how fast we all write.

I feel sure we've broached this topic at least once before at DWT, but like with most writing topics, opinions change, lightbulbs go on (or off), bold statements made in the past are retracted, and therefore, some topics bear repeating.

I was talking about being a Nanoloser over on my other blog this week and some commenters wondered if speed might not make an interesting topic for broader discussion. So here goes my speed ramble.

To me, there are at least two sides to this speed question. First, how fast can a writer write without sacrificing quality for quantity (each writer is different) (possibly each story for each writer is different), and second, how fast MUST a writer write if they want a career in commercial fiction? Is it possible to have a career if you're one of the slow ones? Can a slow writer train themselves to be faster?

I guess another way to phrase the latter question is how fast do publishers expect you to write?

There's no clear answer here, either.

If one writes category romance for Harlequin, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that to build a readerwhip you want at least two books a year, preferably three. And the same (based on my observations) seems to be true at houses like Elora's Cave. Single title romance publishers never used to put out more than one book a year for most authors, (creating the reputed inventory backlog of Nora books), but this too is changing. Rapid, tightly packed release schedules, like Ballantine did for Allison's Brennan's debut series, have proven the old marketing mold of releasing a new book for each author every 9-12 months has been broken very successfully.

So, how fast? I've heard you need to write a book in 9 months or less several times (Madeline Hunter says this in her amazing "Surviving Almost There" talk, as does Cherry Adair. And that sounds about right to me. (Surely a book shouldn't take longer than a baby?)

Problem is, I can't seem to do it. Well, maybe if I added up the time I actually spend writing a book, it is less than 9 months, but for me it seems, all-too-often, to be maybe 6 months of actual writing spread over 18 months on the calendar.

On the other hand, I have a writer friend whose first novel will be released next year. (Because I'm mentioning some details, I'm going to keep in anonymous.) She wrote this book around the same time I wrote my April Hillson book. That is to say, in 2004-2005 (gosh, that seems like a long time ago). And she's working on her second now.

Her book's being published by an "accessible literary" imprint of a major NY house, and they don't seem to be that surprised that she doesn't have her second book ready for press yet. In fact, I don't think there was even talk of two book contract when she sold the first. And her agent doesn't think she can sell the second book on proposal, either. I've heard similar stories from other writer friends and acquaintances who write women's fiction -- even the more commercial kind -- and this is what seems to be typical in that little slice of the publishing world:
One book deals.
No second contract until the publisher sees how the first one sells.
Each book sold 100% complete and quite separately from the others.

I'm sure this changes at some point. I'm sure Jodi Picoult can sell her "next Jodi Picoult title" sight unseen or on a vague idea, but this career transition happens so much more slowly in mainstream fiction than it seems to in the romance genre where relatively new authors seem to routinely sell their second books on proposal, and many authors get multi-book deals right out of the gate.

So, the above-mentioned friend's agent recently rejected a book of another of my friends and told her she'd be happy to look at her next project when it's ready. This woman replied to the agent that it would be at least six to seven months. To which the agent replied. Take your time. It takes at least a year to write a book.

So, is there a right answer here that's based on what type of book you're writing? Is there a difference in mainstream women's fiction vs romance? I'm not so sure. To go back to my Jodi Picoult example, she seems to release a new book every year, and they're pretty complicated and original stories and at least 120,000 words. So obviously it's possible.

And while I guess some people might read between the lines of this post that I'm implying it's faster to write a romance, I don't think that's necessarily true. I do think, however, speed does vary somewhat on the complexity of the book. The structure, the themes, the relative subtlety.

I just deleted a whack of this post that was talking about whether it's faster to write romances than woman's fiction... I deleted it because I feel like I was going off topic and also because I feel like I was trying to give myself excuses for writing more slowly. But I feel like when I write too quickly. When I don't let my stories percolate. What I come up with is trite, boring, derivative, predictable crap.

But even as I get ready to post this... I feel like I'm just making excuses. That on those days when it's not working to push forward in the story, I don't try hard enough to get something onto paper, even if it's just ideas for upcoming scenes.

What do you think? Is my relative pokiness because of who I am as writer, pure laziness, or a function of what I'm trying to write?

How about you? Can you write fast? Do you wish you could? How fast do you think you NEED to write to reach your particular career goals? Do you feel pressure to write faster than you can?