Pulp I saw an article on Dean Wesley Smith’s blog called The New World of Writing: Pulp Speed.
In the piece, Smith discusses word counts, prodigious word counts, the kind that produce results.
What are those results? Money.
I’d say fame, but honestly, I don’t really know too many of the names thrown out there in that piece.
What I do know is that the article’s got a great run-down on different stages of word counts that a serious writer needs to attain if they want to consider themselves a pulp writer. Here’s a look at one:
In the piece, Smith discusses word counts, prodigious word counts, the kind that produce results.
What are those results? Money.
I’d say fame, but honestly, I don’t really know too many of the names thrown out there in that piece.
What I do know is that the article’s got a great run-down on different stages of word counts that a serious writer needs to attain if they want to consider themselves a pulp writer. Here’s a look at one:
Pulp Speed Writing by Dean Wesley Smith (click for link)
Right now I’m between Pulp Speed Two and Pulp Speed Three. Here’s a look at my word counts from 2013 and from 2014 so far:
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Actually, I might be doing better than I think. In 2013 I didn’t start keeping track until the end of February and I still had a helluva lot of words – 1.25 million. (Plus, many months were well below 100,000 words).
This year I’m already up to 1.24 million, so I’ll beat last year’s and get up to around 1.32 million or so.
That’s pretty good, and you can see the results on Amazon, 50 books up and selling. I will tell you – writing that much puts in you a pretty lonely place, a class few others can get to.
I’d say that about 10% of professional writers like myself have an output like that, maybe even less. And if I can keep that up for a decade like some of the names mentioned in that article, then I won’t have to work for asshole bosses anymore, I can just work for myself.
That’s of course if people want to read what I write, which many don’t. Oh, they’ll read it on my site for free, but ask them to pay for something? Shit.
Other ‘writers’ don’t really want to associate with someone that’s putting out those kind of word counts, either. Oh, they’ll say they will, but after a month of trying to catch-up, and the prospect of 11 months of looking bad, no, many don’t want to associate with you at all.
Because you know what? You can talk and communicate like you write – directly and without a lot of time wasting. God, ‘writers’ love to waste time, but that doesn’t get you those 50 books on Amazon, now does it? (Dean Wesley Smith has 193 unique Amazon titles)
But you don’t want to hear that, do you? It’s much better to have someone hold your hand or tell you it’s possible to get that runaway success off one book. Maybe you can even have that castle one day too, huh?
Go to the big-name authors for that shit. They’ll coddle you and tell you that it’s all possible – I’ll just tell it to you straight. And straight is the fact that you probably need another job. Because there’s people like me out there, people that a can write fast, write well, and that don’t need to go back and procrastinate over what’s been done.
Instead we move on, and maybe that’s best for you as well. Or were you also pushing ahead to Pulp Speed Three? In that case, stick around.
This year I’m already up to 1.24 million, so I’ll beat last year’s and get up to around 1.32 million or so.
That’s pretty good, and you can see the results on Amazon, 50 books up and selling. I will tell you – writing that much puts in you a pretty lonely place, a class few others can get to.
I’d say that about 10% of professional writers like myself have an output like that, maybe even less. And if I can keep that up for a decade like some of the names mentioned in that article, then I won’t have to work for asshole bosses anymore, I can just work for myself.
That’s of course if people want to read what I write, which many don’t. Oh, they’ll read it on my site for free, but ask them to pay for something? Shit.
Other ‘writers’ don’t really want to associate with someone that’s putting out those kind of word counts, either. Oh, they’ll say they will, but after a month of trying to catch-up, and the prospect of 11 months of looking bad, no, many don’t want to associate with you at all.
Because you know what? You can talk and communicate like you write – directly and without a lot of time wasting. God, ‘writers’ love to waste time, but that doesn’t get you those 50 books on Amazon, now does it? (Dean Wesley Smith has 193 unique Amazon titles)
But you don’t want to hear that, do you? It’s much better to have someone hold your hand or tell you it’s possible to get that runaway success off one book. Maybe you can even have that castle one day too, huh?
Go to the big-name authors for that shit. They’ll coddle you and tell you that it’s all possible – I’ll just tell it to you straight. And straight is the fact that you probably need another job. Because there’s people like me out there, people that a can write fast, write well, and that don’t need to go back and procrastinate over what’s been done.
Instead we move on, and maybe that’s best for you as well. Or were you also pushing ahead to Pulp Speed Three? In that case, stick around.
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