Authors Anonymous

lizmonster said:

... Writing is an art as much as a craft. Most people can't read a book about Michelangelo and go out and paint the Sistene Chapel. You need to do the work and practice. And you need to not write plug-in prose.

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Many great comments on this thread, but Lizmonster's comment really cuts to the chase.

The only way to become a great writer is to practice that art/craft, over and over and over...

Write, read it, think about it, re-write...write, read it, think about it, re-write... rinse and repeat...

To the original question: I don't feel a need to know anything about authors whose books I read.

Enlightened said:

As to your response to question 2, maybe authors you like point it out at some convention, or some journalist makes note of it and it goes public. These are hypotheticals. Improbable, but they can occur. If we focus on an author who is very commercially successful (let's pretend it happens) with their first book, don't you think people will do some digging to get to know who this person is, and share it with others? Maybe journalists, other authors, others?

Thanks for responding.

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You should ask Thomas Pynchon.

Enlightened said:

Learning is something done over time, and is done in many ways. Trial and error is certainly one way. To an extent, I will be doing some of that; everyone does, especially their first time writing a creative work. We can think of an economic model. On the X-axis is time. On the Y-axis is knowledge (i.e. what we know). You can take a long, gradual journey and learn the craft. If you learn from others with experience, it can (but no guarantee) take less time.

For me, I am doing everything for the first time. I chose to minimize my time learning, to minimize mistakes (and, hopefully, revision time), and learn if what I am doing can work. Everyone learns differently. I have databases to help me minimize problems and, hopefully, revision time. There is no guarantee what I am doing will work. I must prove the concept, or experience failure.

I like to minimize risk of making critical mistakes. If other people just sit down and write, without any formal instruction, that is absolutely fine for them.

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Let me ask you this: how do you plan to evaluate whether or not your work is good?

I don't mean to take the wind out of your sails, and I apologize if I've done so. I hope your journey brings you joy.

What I do mean to do, I think, is suggest that there are more than two possibilities here. It's not a matter of either your preordained method working, or you falling on your face. What's more likely is that you'll go through what most writers go through the first time they try to pull something together: the experience will be 99% stuff you didn't anticipate. That's neither good nor bad, but neither is there a good way to express it on a spreadsheet.

Enlightened said:

Another issue of mine is I don't like to tell people what I do for a living. If I become an professional author (based on what I deem one to be), I would not want to talk about it with non-authors at social gatherings. I'd rather tell them I was a cook at a fast-food establishment, and have them change subjects from lack of interest.

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Don't know if you've got what you need from this thread, but, two points:
1) tell people you do some sort of commissioned sales - insurance, vacuum cleaners, make-up whatever. I can pretty much guarantee that no-one will express much interest in what you do, especially if you smile eagerly.
2) probably the simplest solution to not being easily recognized is to cultivate some really identifiable, easily removable piece of apparel. For any publicity opportunities, from bio pics to public readings, always appear in distinctive glasses (even if you don't need them) or a recognizable hat. Not sunglasses (too obviously a disguise) but a loud scarf tied in a big bow might do. Something so distinctive that people identify you by the object, and that if you remove it, you become just a face in the crowd.
I've never been much interested in author's bios or pics, but I've read enough Terry Pratchett that I've seen his jacket cover pics. Honestly, if you took the big black hat off him, I wouldn't know him from anyone else. GRRM without the hat and glasses, looks very much like my union rep, etc.

Enlightened said:

Good points, but some of what I plan (long-term) is dependent on what is in the first book. I have to make sure it is right, or what I want (if things work out) will be problematic.

I'm doing 3-4, 3-hour work sessions a day on my project. No procrastination here. I am doing many things. For example, I recently finished new databases that will help me recall all the learning I did from numerous sources. I have command centers to use Ctrl+F to find what I need, when I need it (if I forget).

Learning how to write a novel, then learning how to write a novel series, is very complicated. There is a huge learning curve. I learned a lot in a relatively short amount of time, and it is impossible to retain it all. I had to take the time to build these command centers of knowledge, so I do not take the time trying to find the resources I once learned for the details I need to get through a technical hiccup (and slow my creative flow). This may be procrastination to one, but not to me. I will use these documents for every book, short story, character I develop, world I build, and so forth. The time invested, for me, to build these databases was well worth it.

Thank you for the insight. I appreciate what you are saying, but, for me, there are other considerations I must contend with, or my chances to succeed will diminish. This is my opinion of course.

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Personal opinion so please feel free to ignore it but you seem to be having a awful lot riding on a first book that you haven't even written yet. If I were you I would just worried about my first novel, write it and make it the best version it can be and once it's ready you can start thinking about what next. I might be completely wrong but your talk of series and spin-off makes it sound like you are planning your literary empire, before you've even built a single house.

Planning and having references and database can be helpful if that's what works for you (we're all different that way) but it won't make your writing good. Writing will make your writing good. Writing practise short stories, practise flash fiction, or an actual scene of your novel, a chapter, then another. Then showing them to people who are ideally more experience than you and who can give you feedback and pointers on what works what doesn't, so then you can go back and refine, refine, refine...

I agree with lizmonster if you haven't started the actual writing (beside some dialogues) having a MS good enough to send around by the end of the year is quite unrealistic, bearing in mind the competition out there you would have to make sure it's in the best condition it can be. I don't read SF but other example: Felicity Yap's Yesterday which was a huge success in the UK last year, she went through 12 drafts before she submitted. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent took him 5 years to write to be good enough to have a book jacket quote by Stephen King. The only exception I know of is Kazuo Ishiguro who wrote the first draft of The Remains of The Day in 4 weeks, but he was already an accomplished author, also he is Nobel prize winner so not just a mere writer.

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, good luck with your writing.

Ps. I'm not trying to knock the wind out of your sails, I just want to give you realistic expectations so you're not disappointed.

Quick note on Ishiguro - he did the first draft in a few weeks but spent 8 months revising afterwards.

I only mention that cause he gets cited by some indies of an example of how "churning" can produce quality books (ie that their books written and published in four weeks are on a par with his...) and I'm always getting cross with them when that comes up!


It probably does seem like everyone is trying to take the wind out of your sails, but most people are trying to help you manage expectations. If you have very specific expectations, you can risk setting yourself up for disappointment, and that's hard.


I decided at 29 that I needed to write, now or never, and resolved to have a book agented or published by the time I was 30. OTherwise I was going to throw the towel in. Those were my "conditions" for whether it was worth continuing.

I'm 30 now (31 in June). Not agented or published. But I've written two complete MSS, written and sold a few short stories for the first time; still learning, still going--it's still worthwhile. My initial conditions for continuing were frankly ridiculous and it did knock me back after the first year.

Best laid plans of mice and men, and all that. Just saying--maybe allow yourself some flexibility. It doesn't have to be binary, success or not success. Etc.

Seems fair enough. 12 weeks is nearly 3 months, and 3 or 4 months for a first draft sounds doable to me.

I've taken about 4 for each of mine, although I edit a lot afterwards. Some take longer and edit less at the end.

I envy you faster writers. The draft of my WIP thriller will take another month, so just over a year since I started. And it will take at least two months of research and editing after that. However, I have a busy non-writing job and other interests, so writing has to fit in.

However, I do expect the novel to attract a top agent and publisher and go on to be an international bestseller. There's no fun expecting anything less...

I'm not any faster--months of editing and revising and redrafting follow the first draft.

18 months was the total count for MS1 and ti needs another overhaul, still. But I've stopped to write a standalone before going back to MS1.


Writing has to fit in for most, I think. It does for me. I work part time from home, we home educate two kids, and my youngest has autism. So not a job, but it occupies a lot of hours of the day, and I generally write at night when they're both asleep or early in the morning before they wake. Ten minutes here and there, sitting down to fill in gaps and margins.

I guess that sounds defensive, but I don't sit and write all day by any stretch. I don't know many people who do that, unless they're retired. As has been mentioned much in the thread above, most authors keep their day jobs even after publication.

I finished the first draft of my first novel attempt in 3 months. Didn't race through it or plan on three months- it just worked out that way. That was 18 years ago!! Had spells since where I left it alone, but just about finished polishing it - maybe - touch wood.

Some folks suggest mixing editing and creative writing is not a good idea - uses different sides of the brain - but each to his own. Also worth waiting till the end otherwise you risk wasting time altering stuff that you don't realise may need altering again when the end is reached.

Enlightened said:

I have expectations till I finish my first draft of my book. After that, it's the great unknown; no expectations. I expect to have my first draft finished in a maximum of 12 weeks. I assume it will be less, maybe 10 weeks. During writing, I expect to average 5000-8000 words per week. I will take strategic days off, so it will not be a straight through race to the first draft. I will do some editing as I go along.

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Harlequin said:

I'm not any faster--months of editing and revising and redrafting follow the first draft.

18 months was the total count for MS1 and ti needs another overhaul, still. But I've stopped to write a standalone before going back to MS1.


Writing has to fit in for most, I think. It does for me. I work part time from home, we home educate two kids, and my youngest has autism. So not a job, but it occupies a lot of hours of the day, and I generally write at night when they're both asleep or early in the morning before they wake. Ten minutes here and there, sitting down to fill in gaps and margins.

I guess that sounds defensive, but I don't sit and write all day by any stretch. I don't know many people who do that, unless they're retired. As has been mentioned much in the thread above, most authors keep their day jobs even after publication.

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That sounds very impressive rather than defensive.

I could certainly devote more time to writing, but I have a very nice balance in my life at the moment, which I have no wish to disturb. I'll have a lot more time to write when I retire - not that far away - so unless the bestseller intervenes earlier, I'm happy to wait

screenscope said:

That sounds very impressive rather than defensive.

I could certainly devote more time to writing, but I have a very nice balance in my life at the moment, which I have no wish to disturb. I'll have a lot more time to write when I retire - not that far away - so unless the bestseller intervenes earlier, I'm happy to wait

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A lot more time when you retire! That's what we all think!! Just wait - it's amazing how stuff turns up to fill the space. Sod's Law.

When I don't feel like talking about my fiction writing, when people ask what I do, I tell them I'm a technical writer/editor (my day job). Their usual reaction is for their eyes to glaze over and they wander away. A few more knowing souls generally pat me on the shoulder, say "you poor sod", and then keep moving before I can tell them all about requirements, tech manuals, user manuals, change documentation, proposals, sleepy:, oh sorry, put myself to sleep there....).

Elle. said:

Personal opinion so please feel free to ignore it but you seem to be having a awful lot riding on a first book that you haven't even written yet. If I were you I would just worried about my first novel, write it and make it the best version it can be and once it's ready you can start thinking about what next. I might be completely wrong but your talk of series and spin-off makes it sound like you are planning your literary empire, before you've even built a single house.

Planning and having references and database can be helpful if that's what works for you (we're all different that way) but it won't make your writing good. Writing will make your writing good. Writing practise short stories, practise flash fiction, or an actual scene of your novel, a chapter, then another. Then showing them to people who are ideally more experience than you and who can give you feedback and pointers on what works what doesn't, so then you can go back and refine, refine, refine...

I agree with lizmonster if you haven't started the actual writing (beside some dialogues) having a MS good enough to send around by the end of the year is quite unrealistic, bearing in mind the competition out there you would have to make sure it's in the best condition it can be. I don't read SF but other example: Felicity Yap's Yesterday which was a huge success in the UK last year, she went through 12 drafts before she submitted. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent took him 5 years to write to be good enough to have a book jacket quote by Stephen King. The only exception I know of is Kazuo Ishiguro who wrote the first draft of The Remains of The Day in 4 weeks, but he was already an accomplished author, also he is Nobel prize winner so not just a mere writer.

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, good luck with your writing.

Ps. I'm not trying to knock the wind out of your sails, I just want to give you realistic expectations so you're not disappointed.

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Not for nothing, as I agree with your point, but just in the specific, a hamster could prance on the keys of a typewriter and produce a book good enough to have a jacket quote by Stephen King.

I mean this to his credit, as I've always thought it quite endearing (though it makes me SUPER wary of any book I see with a King quote on it, heh), the man is famous for being willing to blurb anything. Anything. Like... anything. Really, I see his name on a cover of something he didn't write, I tend to assume it's crap because they couldn't get anyone else.