I'm prolific, and proud of it

williemeikle · Mar 2, 2009

I've been called "prolific" in the past, mainly used in a derogatory manner, as if to say that if I write a lot, it must automatically be of poor quality. It seems I am in good company.

I came across this essay in the NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Nicholson-t.html

One quote in particular caught my eye.

"The truly prolific author, as distinct from the merely respectably productive one, is either a genre writer or a relic."

Well I'm getting on a bit, but I'm not a relic yet. However it seems that genre writers, if prolific, are destined to always be damned with faint praise.

But for me, I know, It's only rock n' roll, but I like it.

Ken · Mar 2, 2009

Stephen King is prolific. So you're in good company, Willie. Keep at it and follow your own drum beat. It's the only way to go

WendyNYC · Mar 2, 2009

Joyce Carol Oates is often called prolific. She can string a sentence or two together pretty well.

williemeikle · Mar 2, 2009

I'm not as prolific as these folks though :

There are certain writers whose prolificacy seems to have little connection with supply and demand. In this category are people like Rajesh Kumar, the author of 1,500 pulp paperbacks, written in Tamil, and Kathleen Lindsay (a k a Mary Faulkner, and a few other names too), who once made it into the Guinness Book of World Records with 904 books written in 45 years. The romance novelist Barbara Cartland seems positively idle by comparison. She wrote, in many cases dictated, about 700 books, achieving the inconceivable feat (according to BarbaraCartland.com) of leaving 160 novels “unpublished” at the time of her death.

astonwest · Mar 2, 2009

When I've called people prolific, it's never been derogatory. But maybe that's just me.

I'm prolific, and proud of it

williemeikle

The force is strong in this one.

Ken

WendyNYC

fiddle-dee-dee

williemeikle

The force is strong in this one.

astonwest

2 WIP? A glutton for punishment