Doomed, I tell you, DOOMED

First thing's first:

Thanks to your generous votes, we've finally decided what I'll be doing for my 100th blog post!

On September 19th, I will be sharing a never before seen excerpt from my latest book, Coetir: The People of the Woods, to be released this coming January. In fact, the response has been so great that I'll be releasing several teaser excerpts in the coming months, so keep your eyes peeled.

Second thing's second:

Today's post!

Since it's Friday, and on Friday we talk about quotes, I scrolled through my list and chose one at random, which just so happened to be by Ray Bradbury.

"Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed." 

Firstly, let me just mention how weird a word "doom" is. I mean, really, doom. Who came up with this thing? It doesn't even really sound like a word.

...Maybe that's because I've just said it so many times in a row that it now sounds like a dying cow.

I digress.

What Bradbury says, in simpler words, is that if you're going to write, you need to WRITE. There is no real middle ground for writers. There aren't days where we don't write. We write, and we write A LOT. Why? Because as Bradbury says, if we don't, we're doomed.

But I suppose the real question is, why? Why is it doom for a writer to not not in large quantities?

I'll tell you.

As we heard from Stephen King a few weeks ago, if you want to be a writer, you need to both read a lot and write a lot. If you're not reading a great many things, you probably aren't progressing in your writing abilities--but the same is true if you're not writing a great many things.

People frequently ask me why I spend so much time writing every day, or why I'm very specific about making sure to write every day.

The truth is, I write because if I don't write, I might lose the story. If I don't write it right now, it's not going to stay with me. Style changes, ideas changes, quality changes. My ability to write this story is in the now, and I'm going to do it in quantity so I don't lose the quality.

It's like anything else, really. The more you do it, the better at it you become. It takes practice, time, and patience. But in the end, quantity is always a good way to ensure you'll reach quality (and hopefully stay there).

[love and 8,000 words]

{RD}