{"id":28950,"date":"2024-11-08T03:00:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=28950"},"modified":"2024-11-05T12:03:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T20:03:32","slug":"dont-move-fast-break-things-by-catharine-bramkamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/08\/dont-move-fast-break-things-by-catharine-bramkamp\/","title":{"rendered":"(Don\u2019t) Move Fast: Break Things by Catharine Bramkamp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"(Don\u2019t)<\/a>Let\u2019s welcome back monthly columnist Catharine Bramkamp<\/a> as she shares with us \u201c(Don\u2019t) Move Fast: Break Things.\u201d Enjoy!<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

The last time I moved fast<\/strong>, I shattered my knee cap.<\/p>\n

In U.S. culture, fast and furious is always privileged over measured and mediated.<\/p>\n

Clearly, being first often equates with success; the first to patent an idea, the first to publish a scientific theory, first to try a new move.<\/p>\n

Speed wins the race.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the fall outs from the Amazon culture is we can have an item within days, sometimes hours of ordering. It\u2019s natural that over the years we have conflated writing a book with ordering a book.<\/p>\n

Books arrive overnight. We should write them just as fast.<\/h3>\n

Some authors do write their books that fast.<\/p>\n

Danielle Steel<\/a> publishes an impressive three books a year.<\/p>\n

Younger genre authors publish more frequently than that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writers who enjoy fast turnaround often work in a specific genre.<\/p>\n

They work within their own world, which in turn, the reader is familiar with. And once established, it\u2019s relatively easy to churn out five to six (sometimes more) books a year, lighting manuscripts one after the other like a chain smoker: Cindy finds love in the Bookstore. Mandy finds Love in the Flower Shop. Teresa opens a Bookstore\/Flower Shop and finds love.<\/p>\n

The books are exactly what the readers want<\/strong>, no more, no less. These series books, many of which are eBooks only, are, in some cases, so massively successful they earn their authors enough money to open their own Flower Shop\/Cafe\/Bookstore. And jolly good for them.<\/p>\n

James Patterson<\/a> dominates best sellers lists not only through world building but committee management.<\/p>\n

He thinks up the plot and hires relatively unknown authors to write up the book drafts. Another team researches, graphic artists create the covers, the publishing team crafts the back copy and launches the marketing campaign.<\/p>\n

Patterson in turn<\/strong>, puts that unknown author\u2019s name on the cover, right below Patterson, giving credit where credit is due, which can be a great career boost for the author.<\/p>\n

All just fine, but do not make the mistake as you survey a used bookstore shelf packed with copy after copy of James Patterson and despair that you can\u2019t publish 31 books a year.<\/p>\n

You are not a committee. You could be, but you aren\u2019t. You are you. And you have my permission and support to write your book at your own pace.<\/p>\n

A book takes as long as it takes.<\/h3>\n

(Don\u2019t) Move Fast: Break Things<\/h2>\n

Most of my clients aren\u2019t working to create a system, they aren\u2019t writing genre fiction.<\/p>\n

They are working on recording a unique expression of themselves<\/strong>, of their story, of a character that reflects all truth they want to say out loud but need a story to do it effectively.<\/p>\n

Those novels and memoirs take longer to create. And that is okay.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you have an idea for a book but the character takes his or her sweet time before starting to speak.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you must wait out an elderly relative before you can write that memoir.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes you get 50,000 words into a novel and one morning realize that the Muse led you astray, and the whole thing needs to be tossed. Or even ritualistically burned (true story).<\/p>\n

If you are writing something unique, now is the time to embrace process.<\/h3>\n

And process is slow, steady. If you try to write too fast you will lose the very reason to write at all: living in your zone, experiencing the day as a creative, spending hours in joy.<\/p>\n

Writing is a process<\/strong>, it\u2019s about the doing<\/i>. The goal is to spend days and weeks and months immersed in a world of your own making. This is your art, and it won\u2019t end when you publish.<\/p>\n

What I have learned over publishing 27 or so books is that no one cares when I finish or even what I finish.<\/p>\n

They care even less about when I publish. When I tell someone I\u2019m a writer, they don\u2019t ask about the finished book (likely because they aren\u2019t really readers) but they are fascinated by the process.<\/p>\n

They want to discuss how I\u2019m writing:<\/strong><\/p>\n