They wrote 40+ books each. What's their secret?
11 super prolific writers share their mental process, writing advice, and morning routines
Here’s a burning question I’ve been obsessed with, and I’m not alone:
Apart from being genius, do super prolific writers have something we don’t know of, a secret process that not only nurtures but catapults their writing superpowers?
Is it writing in a quiet room, shut away from the world?
Not always. Jane Austen used to write in the busiest room of the house in utter chaos.
Is it an all-consuming love for writing that makes it impossible to dedicate their lives to anything else?
In many cases, it’s not that either. Agatha Christie described writing as “there’s no agony like it”. Or, “5 years of teaching and I still have a horror of creative writing,” Paul Auster remarked while on the phone to The Guardian.
I’ve been through as many habits and routines of famously productive writers as I could get my hands on, ruining my copies of Daily Rituals, Daily Rituals — Women at Work, and The Paris Review Interviews volumes with notes and folded corners, and scanning the depths of the internet night after night.
At last, I think I’ve found some answers.
Joyce Carol Oates
Portfolio: Over 100 books and collections (as per The Guardian), including her novels, drama, plays, poetry, YA and children’s fiction, plus works she wrote under her two pen names
Joyce Carol Oates once said to The New Yorker:
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