Thursday Thirteen #51

Since I missed out one week, this TT means that I have been doing this meme for one whole year.  And I have enjoyed every week of it!  I notice that a lot of my fellow bloggers whom I have met through this site are writers, as am I in my own only-one-book-published-so-far way, so this list may interest them. While they and I struggle week after week, month after month, to finish a first draft, here is a list of authors who were able to write full length novels in six weeks, or in some cases considerably less.  The bastards!

In spite of the success of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott and her family were desperate for money to live on and she  wrote Little Men in just under three weeks. A few years later she wrote Eight Cousins, but she took somewhat longer over that – it took her almost five weeks.

The detective novel and thriller writer John Creasey wrote approximately 600 (yes, six hundred) novels, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms.  While he could sometimes take up to six weeks on a book, he did once manage to write two full length novels in six days.  His own preference was to spend about twelve days on a book.

Daniel Defoe was one of the earliest novelists in the English language, and we have all heard of his Robinson Crusoe, which was extremely successful.  To take advantage of this, he wrote a sequel, The Further Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe, in just under a month.

Some writers work best when they have to meet deadlines.  It certainly helped James Hilton.  He was four days away from having to produce a finished novel and he had written nothing, so he sat down and wrote Goodbye Mr. Chips.  It was serialized in a magazine in Britain and didn’t do much, but after it was published in book form in the USA it became a runaway success and Hilton’s reputation, and future income, were assured, thanks to those four days of frantic writing.

In 1759 Samuel Johnson wrote The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia in just one week. In fact, he confined his writing to just the evenings of that week.

British writer, mountaineer, poet, occultist and (maybe) wartime spy Aleister Crowley wrote his first published novel,  Diary Of A Drug Fiend, in 1922.  The title described the contents admirably, and it was very likely based in part on Crowley’s own experiences of so–called black magic, sex rituals, heroin and cocaine.  In spite of his prolific use of these narcotics, and a bout of fever, Crowley managed to average 5000 words a day and finished it in under a month.  When it was published the book created a huge scandal and was denounced in the press and from the pulpit, thus ensuring its status as a best seller.

Gore Vidal is famous for his long, very erudite novels, frequently based on actual people and events in American history.  Each of these takes him about a year, or even longer.  But he did once, under the pseudonym of Edgar Box, write three murder mysteries which took him about a week each.  Also, he did finish one of his more famous novels, Myra Breckenridge, in one month.

When he was writing as Richard Bachman, and before he was unmasked, Stephen King finished his novel The Running Man after a frenetic and almost sleepless weekend of writing in longhand on hotel stationery.

Another example of meeting a deadline, this time to enter a novel-writing competition.  Anne Rice wrote her Interview With The Vampire in five weeks.  It didn’t win the competition but it was published and was very successful, so I shouldn’t think Ms Rice was particularly bothered!

At the start of his writing career, Evelyn Waugh wrote his satirical novels, such as Scoop and Decline And Fall,  in about six weeks each. As his work turned more serious, he took considerably longer over his books but when he returned to satire with Scott-King’s Modern Europe in 1947, he was able to finish it in under five weeks.

Robert Louis Stevenson woke up one morning after having had a nightmare, and proceeded to put it down on paper. He later published it and it became known ever after as  The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde.  It took him all of three days to write.

Attorney Erle Stanley Gardner wrote over eighty novels featuring the defense lawyer Perry Mason.  They used to take him as little as four or five days each.  Sometimes he would have two novels in progress at the same time.  He wrote for half of each day, and devoted the other half to his law practice.

Georges Simenon was a prolific Belgian (not French!) novelist.  He finished his first novel, before reaching his eighteenth birthday, in just ten days.  But this was positively slouching compared to his record of finishing a book in just twenty-five hours.  He is best remembered for the series of 75 detective novels featuring Inspector Maigret.  He had a system for writing these: each book was eleven chapters long, and he wrote a chapter a day, so each one took just eleven days to finish.  Simenon also boasted that he had slept with over ten thousand women.  He was obviously a master of time management!

I am indebted for some of this information to The Book Of Lists 3

.

Comments

[susiej]

I feel as if I do nothing. Wow.

[Tink]

That's some interesting stuff! I wasn't aware of a lot of it!
Thanks for visiting my grandmothers TT.

[On a Limb with Claudia]

I interviewed like 300 authors in the Open Grove. You'd be surprised how many authors do this. In modern times, a lot of authors bid/pitch books then write them at the deadline. This is supposed to be a very lucrative way of writing books. Sadly, my head doesn't work like that.

Yes, yes, those boundaries we talked about before! ;)

Happy TT!

[chanpheng]

Thanks for the interesting list. It's amazing how some people can write. It must be a mixture of being able to let yourself go, on top of talent (which has been developed by a lot of writing and editing) fueled by desperation.

I've done NaNoWriMo the past few years, and I can say that what I've written in one month could never be considered publishable much less turn into a best seller.

[Malcolm]

Damn, Mr. Simenon was a busy man! Still, his 10,000 falls far short of Wilt Chamberlain's claim of over 20,000 women. By the way, the volumes in "The Book of Lists" series are some of my favorite sources for fascinating information.

[Holly]

I can't imagine! I wrote a 300+ page book and I managed it in three months - but that was three months of little or no sleep. I can't imagine cranking one out - no less a GREAT one that fast.

There are groups though that try to write a book in a week. Mostly an exercise to get people going. Wow!

Smiles,

Holly
http://theabundanceplace.com

[Robin]

And many of them did them longhand at that! Amazing...

[The Happy Housewife]

My daughter would tell you that Ms. Alcott should have spent more time on Little Men, for she did not care for the book at all. She found Eight Cousins more entertaining, and of course loved Little Women, as most young girls do.

[SJ Reidhead]

I wrote both of my published novels in about 3 weeks. That's all I did. When i write fiction if I do not keep at it I never finish the project.

SJR
The Pink Flamingo

[Susan Helene Gottfried]

When #2 starts first grade in the fall, I'll return to my pre-Mommyhood proliferation. I hope.

I was pretty good; everyone in my grad school class hated me. :D

[Ann Bruce]

It takes me at least a month to write a novella!

[Nicole Austin]

Great list. Very interesting.

The shortest time its ever taken me to write a story is 3 weeks, and that still amazes me.

Deadlines give me the hives!

[pussreboots]

I have a fantastic old (second or third edition) copy of Robinson Crusoe that also has the sequel. It's one of my all time favorite books in my collection.

Happy TT.

[SandyCarlson]

This is quite a list of heavy weights. Alcott has always been a favorite. She worked her fingers to the bone as a writer. As a young woman, I devoured every word.

Thanks for this glimpse of a wide range of brilliance.

[Morgan]

Wow. What a cool list. Thanks for sharing! :)

[tommie]

what a great list! Happy TT. thanks for visiting my TT.

[Lori]

What about John Saul??? He is one of my favorite authors. Happy Anniversary:) Mine was in February. Happy TT Nicholas...have a great week.

[Lori]

BTW...I linked you to my blog. I cant believe I didnt do it before now. Ciao:)

[Lara]

SIX WEEKS? Good heavens. I'm truly stunned by some of the books too. I just can't imagine doing anything else for those 6 weeks -- you'd just have to have one purpose: write. Interrupted occasionally by a meal and hopefully a shower! I also can't imagine doing that in longhand without the benefit of spell check!
Great TT Nicholas...as always!

[Winter]

Scary. I can't imagine getting it done in 6 weeks. Maybe if I did nothing else.

[marcia v]

wouldn't it be nice to be so prolific?? i am glad some are

[Lisa Andel]

I'm not so much a deadline writer, but when I'm "on" I'll write 10-12K words a day.

Don't ask about the "off" times. :-)

[Kaige]

Congrats on your meme anniversary! Nice trivia, Nicholas. Sounds like some of them lived in the NaNoWriMo mindset.

[Joy]

What an interesting post!

Makes me feel next-to-worthless as a wannabe writer, but great post all the same!

[zenmomma]

I'm so impressed when someone can write a novel at all.