An Interview with Lee Child
I am a member of a few writer groups and a lot of the time I wonder what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I reach the wordage targets other writers seem to achieve, or claim to achieve. I’ve seen claims of as many as 15,000 words a day written…
I only wrote about 800 words today, yet I am very pleased with them, because the words worked, they drove the story onwards.
I can’t claim the words necessarily went in the direction I wanted them to go, as any story I write develops itself, sometimes wandering into situations that had never entered my mind.
When I say I ONLY wrote 800 words today, I really mean I wrote 800 quality words, words that WILL appear in my novel with, maybe, the slightest alteration when I reread.
To help me I have my partner Hilda to thank, she reads and critiques my days output. Three days ago she wasn’t happy with my day’s writing but couldn’t see why., and told me so! Hilda was absolutely right, and the complete days work bit the dust…
The phrase she gives me that makes me happiest is when she criticises me thus:
“There’s only one thing wrong with it… you’ve not written enough!” Happily I receive that phrase most days!
Now on to the question of wordage that I started this blog with, my lack of writing thousands of words a day…
I heard a radio 4 interview with author of the ‘Jack Reacher’ books, Lee Child, I’m an avid reader of his books and buy them all as soon as hey come out.
I never knew, until I listened to this interview, that Lee Child writes exactly the same way I do. He has no preparation before he starts writing, apart from the title, and the story unfolds before him as he writes.
His daily word output matches mine and he’s really happy if he reaches 1500 words…
The only difference between us? He sells millions of books and I don’t!
So, Mr Publisher, if you’re reading this and you haven’t yet signed me up, you’re losing a lot of money!
Kenneth J. Matthews 