Future Book Progress Report

While Tahoe Hit (Owen McKenna #18) is leaping forward in ideal book launch fashion and I couldn't be more pleased with its reception, the writing of Owen McKenna #19 is lurching forward like a literary ancient sloth trying to extricate itself from the La Brea Tar Pits.

Of the many presumptions about the life and schedule of a writer, one of the most persistent is that writers must first and foremost write religiously every day until they produce two or five or ten pages, whatever is their predetermined production level. This is assumed to be a given for successful writing.

However effective such a schedule is for many writers, it is inapplicable for perhaps most. There are too many other tasks for writers to do each week to always be productive. (One can't write well if one is in the car all day traveling to and from an event.)

So it seems that with most events shut down, this would be a boon for writing production. And to some small degree, it is. But the surprise for me is that while I'm not spending time giving talks and attending events and festivals, I'm spending much more time with correspondence and phone calls, communications that are often about accommodating the cancellation of all my events!

So my schedule is relatively unchanged. I can't write five pages a day when I'm doing ten hours a day of other tasks.

That doesn't mean I don't have a production schedule. I do. It just isn't a daily schedule but a yearly schedule. Every year, I have to have a book out if I want to continue to have a writing career. 

So the next McKenna, which I have had simmering in the back of my mind for a year or so, is gradually taking shape. I've developed what I think is a viable story line. And the pages are beginning to gather.

Stay tuned...