Dave left a comment recently asking how did we schedule our writing. This will probably take a few posts to explain but here is where I start.
Jerry and I had a somewhat unique writing schedule. Many times we would be working on multiple projects simultaneously. We might be gathering together and testing guns, holsters, knives, etc., for a magazine column or article and working on finishing up one of our over 80 novels while researching the next book and coming up with another story idea, all at the same time. After a few near disasters we learned that multi-tasking was fine as long as we stuck to dissimilar projects.
Many writers hold down full time jobs and have to find time to write. Writing was our full time job and we had to find other moments to fit in other necessary projects. The majority of our books were written in our 1904 frame, 13 room house in Commerce, Georgia. Think old. Think wood. Think handmade so nothing in the house was plumb. Think nothing had been done to the place much since 1904 including heat and electricity. Add five acres of untamed land, two young children and anybody’s guess as to pets at one time or another, etc....You get the picture.
“Mom. Dad. We need help!”
“We’re trying to finish a scene. What’s up?”
“Well, the drainpipe musta broken again on the upstairs bathtub and water is running out of the light fixture in the bedroom ceiling down here.”
“%%**###,” one person says. “We’ll be right there. Grab a bucket, turn off the light and get the @@%%## dog out of there! The cat too!”
Many of our stories were hashed out while driving nowhere in particular. Usually we had a seed of an idea and nothing much else. We would gas up the Suburban and take off in one direction or another, Jerry usually driving, me holding a legal pad and pencil. We’d try to come up with a basic story line then let the characters take over as to what they would do in such a situation. Occasionally we’d spend more time coming up with a character name than we took for an entire plot.
Once we were back in the office I would transcribe my notes – whilst I could still read my writing – and turn it into a workable outline. While we’re on the subject of the office, this is the small room holding school and art supplies, camera equipment, a small part of our reference library, dogs, cats and sometimes a container of crickets for Jason’s tree frogs, two desks with computers and all their usual accompanying accoutrements and the two of us at those desks, facing each other. Our office had large windows on three of the four walls which was an added distraction. By the time I was through with framing up the outline, the phone had been ringing off the hook and/or the kids were home from school and we were now involved in something totally different.
Series work such as THE SURVIVALIST, TRACK, THEY CALL ME THE MERCENARY, THE DEFENDER and THE TAKERS kept us busy because the publishers did have to keep up with scheduled releases. We would faithfully promise in out contract to have such and such finished and in their hands by a certain date and we did try to keep to our promises. Please keep in mind that not only did we have book commitments but we had articles and monthly columns in magazines and for a while a short radio segment that we wrote, produced and Jerry voiced at a local station. We both had the attention span of a gnat.
I’ll tell you more next time.
Sharon