This past week has been pretty gruelling. I am working on two books -- one for John Wiley and one for Periplus. Due to atrocious planning on my part (or actually, due to my inability to say No), I have ended up having to hit two tough deadlines at exactly the same time as a very important third deadline a non-writing deadline: I have obligations to my family -- we are on holiday in the UK.
As a result, I am getting up early every morning -- usually between four and seven a.m.-- and then bashing away, producing several thousand words before stopping. Then I head out and have a bucketful of coffee at the local cafe and start the day again, taking the kids, my wife and their grandmother out somewhere. It sounds awful, but it is satisfying to be able to get all these important things done every day.
From a professional writing point of view, I am learning something important. All the time we writers tend to focus on quality quality quality. But bulk is also an issue. Books are big fat long things to produce. With this sort of schedule, churning out thousands of words a day in a relatively short time, there is no question of producing writing of any quality at all. All I am doing is producing bulk to finish the chapters. Once I have finished doing all that, then I will return to it, and go through it all, sentence by sentence, re-writing it and polishing it and making it work. It's a valuable lesson!
