Use Your Spare 15 Minutes (You'd Be Surprised How Much Writing You Can Get Done)

There's a story floating around the Internet about someone whose therapist found loopholes in their mental conditions in order to allow them to achieve tasks in unconventional ways, even if it looked a little odd from the outside. If they were too depressed to make a sandwich, instead of not eating, their therapist suggested just eating individual sandwich components. It was less important that they constructed a sandwich than that they got necessary calories into their body, and if that meant just eating some meat and cheese then that was what they should do. If they had a paranoid episode about their hair curler burning down their house when they left, their therapist suggested just putting the hair curler in their purse. Is that strange? Sure, but if you have the curler in your purse, and you can look at it, then you can use that to reassure your brain that no, it's not plugged in and turned on at home.

This same kind of strategy can be used with creative endeavors as well. Because so often we end up getting so caught up in what writing is supposed to be that we don't stop and ask how it is we're capable of working it into our daily life. Because there are no rules, and if all you happen to have is 15 minutes, you can do a surprising amount with that over time.

It may take time, but it will surprise you what all you can accomplish.

Before we get into it this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! To be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, make sure you check out my Vocal archive for several hundred other articles about geek ephemera, weird history, writing, and more!

It's All About Dedication and Discipline

Think for a second about people who have serious exercise regimens. They have to pack up a bag, go to a gym, take their pre-workout, make sure they're hydrated and have proper calories in them, and then they have to spend at least an hour going through a full set of exercises. All told, this can take two hours or more out of your day, and if you're someone looking at that who just wants to get in shape, you might feel like it's impossible. After all, there's no way you could do that with your life structured the way it is, to say nothing of the costs involved.

Maybe not. But doing things this way isn't the only option.

For example, if you aren't very active, you could find opportunities for more walking in your daily life, as well as just taking the stairs more. It's not going to give you a 6-pack overnight, but it's better than where you were. If you have some space at home, you could find a quick yoga routine that limbers you up, and puts your muscles to work. You could even find a body weight workout routine that you can do in 15 to 20 minutes. Drinking more water instead of soda, cutting sugar out of certain meals, or changing how you snack, can all have impacts that get you closer to your goal.

It's the same with writing.

It all adds up.

You may not have several hours a day to write. You may not have the time, energy, etc., to make a cup of coffee, get your environment quiet, go to a particular place, and just lose yourself in the activity... but that's not the only way to write. That's how some of us do it, absolutely, but just like how you don't have to pump iron to get fit, you don't have to sit at a desk in the attic with the door locked and ear plugs in while banging out 10,000 words a day to get some writing done.

If you only have 15 minutes, ask what you can do with that.

Can you write a character description, or plot a short story idea in a notebook, or in an app on your phone? Can you write a paragraph at a time, or even put down some vignette fiction that's only a few hundred words, but which still tells a complete story? Can you just write some snatches of dialogue, or make notes on the history of a setting?

All of these things are still writing. All of these things are going to help you strengthen your mind, and get used to the process. More importantly, they're going to get you used to going through the motions so that you move with greater surety and familiarity, allowing you to turn your writing brain on and off (assuming yours even has an off button) at will. And if you do these things regularly, dedicating a little bit of time here and a little bit of time there, then you're going to find that you can put down a lot of words. As I said back in Writers, Are You An Ant or a Grasshopper? you can write at least 1 novel a year on just 500 words a day. That's the length of a decent Facebook rant... and most of us can write one of those while we're on the toilet during a work break.

If you feel like you don't have time to write, ask yourself if this is like feeling you don't have time to go to the gym. Because that might be true... but perhaps what you need is to not think of writing as an hours long activity where you sit in a special location, and put thousands of words down on a story. Instead, try doing it where you can, as you can, and just do the word count equivalent of getting in your steps.

You might be surprised at how that adds up over a year or so.

Support The Literary Mercenary

For folks who just want to do their part to help keep me making more content, please subscribe/follow me in these locations:

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, consider checking out my show Tabletop Mercenary if you've ever thought about becoming a TTRPG creator, but you want a glimpse behind the curtain before you just jump into the deep end.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Writers, Are You An Ant or a Grasshopper?

There is an old story about an ant and a grasshopper. During the summer months, the ant begins preparing for the winter to come, but the grasshopper is just jumping around, playing his legs like a fiddle, and doing whatever his little heart wants. The grasshopper even mocks the ant for his daily work, saying that he's just wasting his summer by spending all this time working. Surely the work will wait, won't it?  And while the ant reminds the grasshopper that winter is coming, the grasshopper keeps blowing it off. As the leaves change color, and the temperature starts dropping, the grasshopper realizes he's in real danger. And while he tries to throw something together at the last moment, he simply didn't have enough time before the snow began falling.

Now, this story doesn't take into account the way these insects actually work, and the fact that surviving the winter isn't always a thing. However, the point of the story is a simple metaphor that we should easily grasp as writers; if you want to prepare for the hard times, you need to do the work now, while the sun is shining. Because if the snow is falling, it's probably too late to get started.

Left... left... left, right, left...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

No Summer is Eternal

I want to open with a little fact here. According to some, author Terry Pratchett only wrote an average of 400 words per day. A prolific novelist whose work had a rather large impact on literature as a whole, he managed that with an output that's shorter than some people's Facebook posts. The key here is that he did it every day, rain or shine, sickness or health. Because it may not sound like much, but 400 words a day is easily a novel a year. Two, depending on the length of the genre you're working on.

But you have to roll up your sleeves, and do the job.

You don't get here over night.

There are a lot of writers out there who do things for the love of the craft, or the enjoyment of the exercise. And, to be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you are someone who just wants to create when the urge strikes you, or when the project is fun, that is perfectly fine.

However, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to write professionally.

I say that because, at the end of the day, writing is a numbers game (as is making YouTube videos, TTRPG supplements, audio dramas, or any other creative endeavor out there). The odds are not in your favor that the first book you write, or short story you tell, is going to be the thing that explodes. It's possible, absolutely, but not likely. And while the numbers vary depending on genre and conventional wisdom, I've seen it said that you need at least 10 novels in genres like sci-fi and fantasy, or 20 novels in romance, before you've built the momentum it takes to take your foot off the gas a bit.

Let's return to that earlier example. In fact, let's say that you were a little more ambitious than Sir Terry, and you wrote 500 words per day. This is my personal writing speed, and it allowed me to put together my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers in 10 months, and the first book of the Hardboiled Cat series Marked Territory in about 7 months. So if you had roughly the same amount of fixes and changes that I did, you could hit that 10 books in 10 years. If you were a little more put-together and focused (or maybe you're more skilled than I am), you could hit it in 5 years. And if you were writing romance novels, you've got 20 years on average, 10 years if you're a tight writer.

That's how long it would take for someone who has a plan, and who has dedication to work on their stories every day, using a perfectly realistic word count. But now ask yourself how long it would take if you only wrote sporadically? If you only wrote a handful of weeks, or months, and then didn't get back to your manuscript until after the holidays? Or, worst of all, what if you wrote half the book, then just set it aside in favor of a new idea that had seduced you away from your original manuscript because it was young and fun, and it hadn't yet become a daily slog?

If that's the case, then you may only put out a book every 2 years. Or 3. Or it may take you 5 years to finally get it done. And if that book hits big, it's all good! But if it doesn't... well, as the words of House Stark say, Winter is Coming.

Final Thoughts

I want to be clear, here. This is not some kind of sigma-grindset, up-at-dawn, work-16-hours-a-day message. The point of this week's entry is to remind folks out there that if you want to make a living as a creator, then you typically have to make a lot of stuff... especially if you're not already famous for some reason (Instagram influencer, former national politician, film star, etc.). But making stuff takes time, and as they say, time is money. So if you're depending on the money your work earns to pay your rent, keep the lights on, and buy you food while you work on the next piece, you need to either produce your work quickly enough that you build up a suitable backlog, or you need to have some other source of income in order to keep the wolf from the door.

Lastly, this isn't about who's a real writer. If you write things, then you're a writer, plain and simple. But if your writing cannot pay your bills, or if you aren't able to make yourself produce that work reliably enough for it to satisfy a fan base, it's important not to put all your chips on a single number and let the roulette wheel ride.

Have You Ever Wanted To Be a Professional TTRPG Creator?

A bit of a hard segue, but I wanted to let folks know that I recently started a show titled Tabletop Mercenary, which can be found on both the Azukail Games YouTube channel, as well as over on my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary. On this show I talk about the business side of tabletop RPGs, what it takes to find success in this little corner of the publishing industry, and how folks can avoid the pitfalls I've dealt with for the past 10 years or so.

If that sounds interesting to you, then check it out, and subscribe to my channels so you don't miss a beat!

Support The Literary Mercenary

For folks who just want to do their part to help keep me making more content, please subscribe/follow me in these locations:

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, my gangland noir thrillers starring Leo the Maine Coon Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Being a Creator Can Feel Like Being Stuck in an Unpaid Internship

Unpaid internships are bullshit. The very idea that you have to show up and work, providing your value to an employer in exchange for some vague idea of "experience" and "networking" is just another way for the people with all the money to squeeze something out of you in exchange for nothing. Because not only are they getting all your time, energy, and labor for free, but you still have to buy the right clothes, pay your commuting costs to get to the office, and in the mean time you still have rent, utilities, and food to pay for.

This makes these internships impossible to participate in unless you already have money in the bank, rich parents who can support you, or you're working another job to pay your bills.

For a lot of professional creatives, this is an experience we understand all too well. Because even if we have the skill, the drive, the vision, and the will to make things, what defeats us is often the long stretches of time where we aren't being paid even if we're working our asses off. And sure, there's a promise of payment down the line, maybe, if the market allows it, but it's not a guarantee in the slightest.

Starting to feel like the deck is stacked against us, huh?

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

A Concrete Example of What I'm Talking About

I realize that intro paragraph can seem a little vague, so let me give you an example from my own experience.

For several years I've had people ask me why I wasn't making YouTube videos. It's a big platform, and it would be one more way for me to earn some extra income. While this is technically true, YouTube requires you to have 1,000 subscribers on your channel, as well as 4,000 hours of watched content in the past year before they'll even review you for monetization. That translates to 11.5 hours of watched content per day for 365 days, in case you were curious.

Now, if I already had a loyal following of thousands of people who would subscribe to my channel and watch my videos, that would be a speed bump I could easily deal with. However, I knew from experience that trying to reach those goal posts would mean I would be making hundreds of videos, potentially for years just for the platform to maybe allow me to monetize my traffic.

I did not have years of time and energy to put into something that sized (to say nothing of buying a good mic, buying a camera, learning the ins and outs of editing programs, lighting, etc.) when the problem was that I needed money in my hand before next month's utility statement came due.

So why am I making YouTube videos like the above audio drama Fine Print? Simple... someone actually funded me to make it happen.

Adrian Kennelly, the fellow behind Azukail Games, wanted more video content for the company's YouTube page. It had primarily been used for making preview videos for various tabletop RPG supplements, which would then be linked on their Drive Thru RPG sales page as a way to let browsers take a closer look at what they were thinking about spending their money on. Since he wanted more varied content, he offered me a fee for every video I could make to add to the channel.

If you go to the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which you should subscribe to while you're there), you'll see that over the past year or so I've been improving what I make. I've gotten a good mic, a better camera, I've gotten more comfortable with the editing process, and I like to fancy that the sound effects I add to the audio dramas really make them pop. But I was only able to justify the time, resources, learning, and effort because there was a fee attached to these projects. Not a big fee, mind you, but one that made it a viable project that would pay some of my bills.

If I'd been trying to do this all on my own, grinding away until I eventually got monetized, and then until I had $100 banked (the minimum payout for YouTube to send you a payment)? I never would have done any of this because the only people making a profit would have been YouTube.

A Promise of Future Payment Doesn't Help Right Now

That seems like a pretty specific example, but honestly, most of the publishing industry is run on shoestrings and spitballs when it comes to people getting paid. If you write short stories, you have to send them to an open call, hope they get picked out of the submission pile, and then you'll get paid when the collection is published (assuming there is a payment attached to the story, and that the book actually comes out instead of being cancelled before your check arrives). If you write a novel then you have to get it accepted by a publisher, wait till it comes out, and hope people buy copies of it. Writing the damn thing can take months to years, and publishing can add more months to another few years, and unless you got in tight with Penguin or Random House, you aren't getting an advance on your potential earnings. Making videos, as you see, can come with years of working for nothing, and making a podcast isn't much better in terms of earning potential.

You can opt to do all the publishing yourself, but that means you need the skills, the time, the energy, and then you have to also do all the marketing yourself. And it's possible you could spend several months to several years getting your book, show, etc. ready, only to have no one (or almost no one) actually buy the thing.

So how do writers make a living? Well, real talk, most of us don't.

There's no punchline here. Just facts.

Those of us who do make a living require luck, privilege, security, or some combination of all these things.

Most creators I know can't live off their earnings alone. These folks often depend on a spouse's income, health insurance, or sometimes both. A lot of creators also live with their parents, or with an extended network of friends and partners so they can afford to live off of what little they do make. Some have lucrative day jobs, choosing to write in their spare time. A surprising number have retired from other careers, giving them a foundation to build on. Some folks inherited money from family members who passed away, allowing them to keep the lights on while they get a project made, and build their audience.

Then there's the lucky folks. People who managed to get a book onto the market that just happened to hit the right nerve at the right time for whatever reason. Maybe they make a video that goes viral, their podcast hits an audience that can't get enough, or they gain notoriety because of something they do or say in their story. Maybe they get a cease and desist letter in a public way that causes a lot of curiosity about what their book is about.

And even if you get stuff out on the market? Well, like I said in If 90,000 People Read This Article I Can Pay My Bills This Month, we all require an absolutely ridiculous amount of backing from an audience just to make ends meet if there aren't sponsors covering our living costs while we make our art.

What You Can Do To Help

I felt the need to put this topic together today because I've reached a point, professionally, where I have a lot of publishers who are interested in bigger projects from me (novels mostly, but also TTRPG campaigns), in addition to struggling with some big ideas of my own (particularly a long-form serial in the form of a podcast). And while I want to work on all of these things, the reality is that I live in government-subsidized housing, and I need to have checks ready to go every month. Because when all of your energy is spent making things to help you survive, you simply don't have the luxury of doing bigger, longer pieces... no matter how much passion you might have for them.

If you made it this far and you'd like to help me, specifically, here's some things you can do!

- Follow My Facebook

- Check Out My LinkTree

- Subscribe to My Weekly Newsletter

- Subscribe to The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- Subscribe to My Daily Motion Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Time Isn't On Your Side As A Writer

There are a lot of writers out there who take comfort in stories of late blooming authors. Tales of how someone didn't start releasing books until well into their forties, fifties, or sixties, finally standing up to tell their stories long past when other people would have given up and moved on. And I agree, there is something heartening about a story whose message is, "It's never too late."

This applies to more than just writers, of course.

With that said, I would like to grab all of you who are hanging onto that feel-good message, and give you a thorough shaking. Because it might be true that it's never too late to succeed, but it is definitely never too early to get started!

Are You Ready For The Marathon?

I've said it before, but it bears repeating; a writer's career is an iceberg. The part we all see (and the part those success stories I mentioned earlier focus on) is the actual release. The book, the collection, the work making it into the light of day, and being consumed by the masses. What we don't see is all the effort that went into making that project a reality.

That bottom part is what we're talking about, in case you were wondering.

That huge, pendulous foundation? That is the amount of work you put in behind the scenes. That's all the reading you do to brush up on technique, and to get genre savvy. That's all the sessions of taking notes, fleshing out ideas, and talking with your friends, loved ones, and occasionally rubber ducks about your stories. Most importantly, though, it represents the amount of time you spend actually writing, reviewing, editing, and publishing your work.

Because that's a thing that a lot of folks seem to forget... writing takes a long time. And good writing takes even longer, as a rule.

First off, let's talk about getting the idea ready. For some lucky few of us, stories come in a flash of inspiration, all gift-wrapped and ready to go. For the rest of us, though, we have to sit on the idea, and sculpt out the basics. Figure out who the main cast is, what is supposed to be happening, what world we're writing in, stuff like that. In my experience, and factoring in other writers I've talked to, this can take anywhere from a few hours, to a few days, to a few months. Some writers spend years on this stage, though I wouldn't recommend that.

So, let's say you're lucky, and it didn't take you more than a few days to nail down all your specifics. Cool. Now it's time to hammer out that first draft. If you're a Robert Louis Stevenson, or a Stephen King, you can bang that puppy out in a month or two. However, most of us don't get anywhere near 10,000 words per day. And given that most novels these days tend to trend more to 100,000 words than 50,000 words, you need to ask how long it's going to take you to reach that goal. Especially if you aren't writing every day, or you run into road blocks that require you to go back and change parts of your story in order to keep things cohesive.

For me, this process typically takes about a year or so. Lots of writers I know can do it in half that time, but I don't know too many folks who can claim less than a season for a first draft. And, typically, folks who can pound out a rough draft in such a short amount of time already have a lot of experience as authors, which isn't factoring into this equation.

Let's say you're really good, you write every day, and things go smoothly. So it's been about 7-9 months since you first decided to write this novel. Solid length of time for giving birth to a project. But wait, you're not done. Not even close! Because now you have to go through and edit that book you just wrote to make sure all those pesky mistakes, plot contradictions, and other errors are handled. Depending on your skill, experience, and how straightforward things went during the rough draft, this step can take anywhere from a few weeks, to most of a year.

Oh but wait, you're not done yet!

Once you've gotten that book as good as you think it can be, you then need to turn it over to your beta readers. Because no matter how good you think you are, you need fresh eyes on it to detect any problems you aren't seeing. Because what seems clear as day to you might confuse your readers, and they will notice when you spell a character's name differently in chapter 3, or when you give conflicting explanations about an event.

Depending on your beta readers, this review can take as little as a week, or as much as a few months. So let's say they're attentive, and get the changes back to you within a month. Then you need to make changes based on their feedback, which can take even more time.

At this point, we're looking at about 10 months to a year and change of effort, just to get one book to the point where it's ready for submission. If you want to put it up for sale yourself, that means you need to convert the file, make sure it follows all the guidelines for where you're publishing it, acquire the cover art, and generally handle all those loose ends. If you're fairly tech savvy, and you can handle all the blocking, conversion, and getting an attractive book cover put together. This could take a few hours on the weekend. If you're buying art, aren't all that familiar with the formatting requirements, etc., you can tack on more time. So, in general, getting your book ready to go up will take between a day and a week, depending on a bunch of different factors.

If you don't want to go the self-publishing route, though, you've got a long wait on your hands. Submissions to publishers often take months to get looked at, and bigger publishers can have you waiting years on a yes or no as they skim through all the other hopeful novelists out there. And a lot of publishers don't accept simultaneous submissions, so you have to get a yes or no before pitching your book to someone different. Also, even if your book does get accepted, it can take several months to several years before it gets released.

So, to recap. From inception to release, if everything goes smooth, you work hard, and you don't run into too many issues, you're looking at between 6 months if you're really good, and a year or so if you experience set backs for a self-published book. For a traditionally published book, you're looking at a year to several years, assuming your work doesn't get caught in the grinder just before it slows to a halt.

What Was The Point Of All That?

So why did I walk you through all of that? Especially since every writer is different, and average times are just a shot in the dark? Mostly, it was to point out all the time, energy, and raw effort it takes to get a project from being an electrical impulse in your brain, to being a fully-rendered story people can buy and read. Because it doesn't just happen overnight, and if you take comfort in the "some day" approach, then you might be overlooking how much work you have to do just to get to the point where you can see if this book was a winner or not.

Because more than anything else, writing takes time. And while you're never too old to tell stories, there isn't really any time to waste if you want to actually do this thing. If you want to be ready for that marathon in two years, you need to get off the couch and start your training today! Same goes for being a successful author. Pre-season started yesterday... so what are you going to do?

Also, for those who were interested in this post, you might also enjoy Making A Living As A Writer Is A Waiting Game and Don't Wait Until You're "Good Enough" To Get Paid.

That's all for this installment of Craft of Writing. Hopefully it did something to stoke your pilot light, if you were still in that "one day" frame of mind. For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and to stay on top of all my updates follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you'd like to support me and my work, you can Buy Me A Ko-Fi, or drop a few quarters into The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page. Either way, my eternal thanks and some free books are yours for the asking.