How bestselling writers work
Dan Zak

Discipline. You need it in November, and you need it to create any work of art, novel or otherwise.

Prolific crime author George Pelecanos never wrote a lick of fiction before he was 31, then wrote his first eight books while holding down a full-time job.

For him, the secret to balancing was sacrifice. No free time wasted. No weekends off.

"In those days I would get up early and work late at night," Pelecanos says. "You miss out on some things—things I couldn’t do with my kids, things I had to miss socially. I was very committed to making it work."

It paid off. He does it for a living now.

Laura Lippman, author of the Tess Monaghan mystery novels, wrote her first seven books while reporting for the Baltimore Sun newspaper. She likens the duty of writing to going to the gym. Sometimes you get enough sleep and eat well, but you still feel terrible when you hop on the treadmill. Even if writing starts to hurt despite adequate preparation, it must be done, she says.

"But perfectionism is the enemy," Lippman says. "You need to keep going forward. You’re better off going as quickly as you can through that initial draft and then going back and revising."

Set up a writing schedule that is non-negotiable, says Marita Golden, writer in residence at the University of the District of Columbia.

"People often are afraid that if they stand up for their writing life, they’ll lose friends," Golden says. "But I found it inspires and impresses the hell out of people."

But that non-negotiable schedule should be conceived with regard to the demands of your life, says Tammy Greenwood, an instructor at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, USA..

"It’s about pacing," Greenwood says. "I look at my calendar and assign daily word counts based on what I know my schedule is going to be like."

A quick look at how they operate:

14 novels published

97,000 words in his most recent book, The Night Gardener (Little, Brown & Co., $24.99).

Work ethic: at least five pages a day.

Procrastination tendencies: surfing the Internet, checking e-mail

11 novels published

1,07,000 words in her 12^th book, What the Dead Know (due out in March from William Morrow, $24.95).

Work ethic: 1,000 words every morning

Procrastination tendencies: filing, making sure her library is alphabetised, cleaning woodwork with a cotton swab

5 novels published

256 pages in her most recent book, After (Doubleday, $23.95)

Work ethic: one to two hours a day, several times a week

Procrastination tendencies: watching soap operas

3 novels published

100,139 words in her next book, Two Rivers, which her agent is shopping around

Work ethic: a teacher and a mom, Greenwood finds the schedule has to fit the day

Procrastination tendencies: "My house is never as clean as when I’m writing."

—LAT/WP

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