"Cranking them out."

Maybe I need to shut up about finishing books.

As one friend said, I'm really "cranking them out."

I chose not to take offense at what may be a pejorative verb. From the outside, it may very well appear that I'm "cranking them out."

My simple answer was, "I'm writing every day."

My second answer was, "If I spend 10 hours a day thinking about a story and I can't get 2000 words written, then there's something wrong."

My third answer was, "It's easier than running a store."

I've said this before, but I have always put a lot of energy into whatever I'm doing. It doesn't always look like it, because the energy is always under the surface, always being applied. I'm just slowly trying to warp reality to what I want. And I keep doing it, day after day after day after day...

It's just that with books, there is a qualitative measure. Books get written.

There is a qualitative measure with the store, too, but it's best not to broadcast my sales, other than to tell whether it's "up" or "down."

But when I apply the same diligence to writing, the end result is that...well, I finish books.

Maybe the spending 8 to 10 hours a day on one project is considered weird these days, but isn't that what everyone does with their own jobs? So my "job," so to speak, is to write. I don't think of it as a job, except that I try to be disciplined and to finish what I start.

So the end result, is books get written. You turn around one day, and not only are you writing, you "have written." There are books. One step at a time.

I spent 25 years making excuses -- and they were good excuses too. I mean, I understand that it might be difficult for other people to apply the same sort of effort to writing that I do.

I'll just say this:  I really like doing it, I can afford to spend the time and money to do it, and so I'm doing it.