"i read 20 books in august"?

Previously, I blogged that one of the best ways to write better is to read a lot. And I shared that the novelist Lisa See advised: “Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.” In addition, I shared that Jennifer Weiner, the New York Times bestselling author, reportedly advised: “If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working.”

Consequently, I was intrigued by Ochuko Akpovbovbo, the writer of the Substack newsletter As Seen On, whom related “i read 20 books in august” as the subtitle of her “august reading recap” (Sep 13, 2027), which I found unbelievable.

I asked Ochuko in the comments: “Omg this is very impressive! Does this include audiobooks?” She replied: “No audiobooks! Love paper in my hands”. However, I still wasn’t convinced. I didn’t think Ochuko was lying, but I believe she was, at the minimum, being hyperbolic.

I asked some avid readers if they believed that Ochuko had read twenty books in August, and they all replied in disbelief. And they all agreed that they didn’t believe that Ochuko was lying, but they all opined, like me, that she was being, at the minimum, hyperbolic.

After watching Connor Angus’ YouTube video “How are people reading so many books?”, one of the avid readers hoped that she had cracked the Ochuko case. In the video, Connor related that some people in the BookTok community claimed to have read “30 to 40-plus [books] in a single year”, which is nothing compared to Ochuko, but to achieve their extraordinary reading goals, which Connor learned about via X, they only read the dialogue. And in response to criticism, the dialogue readers accuse thorough readers of “read shaming”.

I don’t know if Ochuko is a dialogue reader, but I came across another potential clue to whether and how she read twenty books in August. In the Elle piece, “Are We in a Reading Monoculture?” Véronique Hyland wrote:

[Ochuko] Akpovbovbo carves out the time to read 15 to 20 books per month, and posts a monthly reading roundup on As Seen On [...] She read all three of the summer’s big blockbusters. (“I loved Famesick. I thought Yesteryear was okay. Strangers was really fun.”)

If you’ve read Strangers, as I have, you would find it very strange that Ochuko opined that it “was really fun.”

For those who haven’t read Belle Burden’s Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, here’s the synopsis posted on Penguin Random House:

In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.

In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was [...] how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal [...]

With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir [...]

One can safely infer from the synopsis that Strangers is not a “fun read”, which begs the (rhetorical) questions: Did Ochuko even read Strangers? If so, did she only read the (fun) dialogue? Will Ochuko ever write a Substack article explaining her prolific reading technique(s)?

The Importance of Writing with Passion and Desire

Photo credit: @iamprovidence\Medium

Previously, we posted that Isaac Bashevis Singer (reportedly) advised that there are [at least] three characteristics that a work of fiction must possess [to be well-written]:

1. It must have a precise and suspenseful plot

2. The author must feel a passionate urge to write it

3. He must have the conviction, or at least the illusion, that he is the only one who can handle this particular theme

We added that of the three, number 2 is arguably the most important, especially as it relates to actually getting the writing done, because it will be very difficult for a writer to write for hours without the energy that a topic of passion can organically provide. 

Nora Roberts, the prolific novelist (e.g., over 200 novels), would agree. Nora advised that a writer should not write something that he or she would not read [for pleasure], and having desire while writing is a must. Nora reportedly advised:

The most important thing is you can’t write what you wouldn’t read for pleasure. It’s a mistake to analyze the market thinking you can write whatever is hot. You can’t say you’re going to write romance when you don’t even like it. You need to write what you would read if you expect anybody else to read it.
 

And you have to be driven. You have to have the three D’s: drive, discipline and desire. If you’re missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it’s going to be really hard to get anything done

Writing Never Gets Easy?

Louise Glück related in her Nobel Prize-winning Proofs & Theories: Essays on Poetry (1994) that it's a fantasy to believe that writing gets easier and that a writer is always inspired. Glück wrote:

It never gets easier to write. The fantasy exists that once certain hurdles have been gotten through, this art turns much simpler, that inspiration never falters, and public opinion is always affirmative, and there’s no struggle, there’s no torment, there’s no sense that the thing you’ve embarked on is a catastrophe.

However, I believe that Glück meant to advise that writing never gets easy, because like anything that you practice regularly, it will (almost) always get easier, but not necessarily easy. For example, the more you write (about a topic of passion), your stamina may naturally increase.

In the film The Tenants (2005), Willie Spearmint, who was writing his first book, shared that, except for Sundays, he wrote for four solid hours per day. However, Harry Lesser, who was writing his third book, wrote for, at least, six hours per day.

Willie Spearmint, "I work from, like, 8 to 12. Four solid hours. And then I'm out. Man, I tell you, this writing stuff is no joke. How long you go for?"

Harry Lesser, "About six hours a day. Sometimes more."

Thus, one shouldn't be surprised that after writing consistently, that it becomes easier, but it may never become easy, because like Willie said, "[T]his writing stuff is no joke."

Literary Talent Isn’t Rare?

Kevin Barry, the Irish novelist, opined in The Paris Review piece "Jumping Off a Cliff: An Interview with Kevin Barry" (November 12, 2013) that "literary talent isn’t rare", because a lot of people have the potential to be good writers; however, most people don't have the discipline to write "every single fucking day", and most people don't make writing a priority. Consequently, most people never develop their literary talent. Kevin Barry:

"The funny thing about it all is that literary talent isn’t rare. Lots of people can write good stories with good characters and great sentences. What’s rare is the stubborn, pragmatic thing that tells you “I’ve got to do this every single fucking day, even when I don’t want to do it, when I’d rather pluck my eyes out and feed them to the birds.” That discipline combined with talent is very rare. I’d be willing to bet that some of the most brilliant writers who ever lived have never been published, because they weren’t prepared to do the work. You have to make sacrifices and be utterly selfish. Everything else and everyone else is secondary to your writing."

Barry's stance reminds me of Angela Duckworth's Grit, where she wrote that grit can be a better indicator of success than "talent" or IQ scores, because talent that's multiplied by effort equals skill, which, when multiplied by effort, God willing, equals achievement. 

Lastly, I would add that a key to having the discipline to write every single day, is to write about a topic of passion, which you passionately want to share. 

Passion Aids the Arduous Nature of Writing

In the film The Tenants (2005), which is based on Bernard Malamud's novel of the same title, Willie confessed to Lesser, "Man, I tell you, this writing stuff is no joke." And in terms of the life of a writer, Willie said, "Baby, it's a long, hard, lonely life."

John Logan, the prolific screenwriter, agreed with Willie. In the Los Angeles Times piece "Duos of ‘Genius’: A. Scott Berg and John Logan [...]" (June 3, 2016), Logan related that making art (e.g., writing) is "arduous" (i.e., writing requires strenuous effort and it can be difficult and tiring). Logan said,

You know what — it is really arduous to make art. It is work. It doesn’t magically happen. Those writers who say, oh you know I wait and inspiration strikes, and magically a perfect sonnet will come. I’m like, you’re lying. That’s not how Wordsworth wrote, that’s not how Keats wrote, that’s not how anyone worked.

And I would add that writing about a topic that you're passionate about is a good way to overcome the arduous nature of writing and stay driven and stimulated. 

A Minimalistic Approach Writing

Source: Donald Ian McCaw\WORDS WORDS WORDS

Per AdviceToWriters, Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, advised budding writers to take a minimalistic approach to writing, which is to simply write "only one word at a time", which will, with some passion-fueled grit, eventually develop into sentences, paragraphs, pages, and a book(s). Smiley reportedly advised:

Writing is only one word at a time. It’s not a whole bunch of things happening at once. Various things can present themselves, but when you face the page, it’s a couple of words, and then a couple more words, and [...] a sentence or a paragraph [...] when I look at writing, it’s all just one word at a time.

Colson Whitehead's Simple Rules for the Art of Writing

Via the New York Times, Colson Whitehead, the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, shared eleven (11) simple rules for the art of writing:

• Rule No. 1: Show and Tell. Most people say, “Show, don’t tell,” but I stand by Show and Tell [...]

Whitehead shared an example of how to Show and Tell: “A penetrating psychological study of a young med student who receives disturbing news from a former lover.”

• Rule No. 2: Don’t go searching for a subject, let your subject find you. You can’t rush inspiration. [...] Once your subject finds you, it’s like falling in love. It will be your constant companion. 

In other words, write about a subject that you're passionate about. 

• Rule No. 3: Write what you know. Bellow once said, “Fiction is the higher autobiography.” In other words, fiction is payback for those who have wronged you. 

• Rule No. 5: Keep a dream diary.  

• Rule No. 9: Have adventures.  

Rules 3, 5, and 9 should be great news for new writers who often think that they have the ability to create art from their imagination instead of using their imagination to turn their experiences into art. 

• Rule No. 4: Never use three words when one will do. Be concise. Don’t fall in love with the gentle trilling of your mellifluous sentences.

I would imagine that most readers of Alfred Appel Jr.'s The Annotated Lolita and most Nabokov scholars would disagree with Whitehead's Rule No. 4.

• Rule No. 6: What isn’t said is as important as what is said. In many classic short stories, the real action occurs in the silences.

Rule No. 6 appears to be contradictory to Rule No. 1 and counterintuitive, but he's the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. 

• Rule No. 7: Writer’s block is a tool — use it. When asked why you haven’t produced anything lately, just say, “I’m blocked.” [...] being blocked is the perfect cover for when you just don’t feel like working.

In other words, if you're following Rule No. 2, you'll never, God willing, unintentionally suffer from writer's block. And Whitehead's Rule No. 7 reminded me of the film Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) where Tom Clancy shared with some admirers that writer's block is synonymous with laziness (i.e., the antithesis of grit).

Tom Clancy: "I don't subscribe to the notion of writer's block."
Female Admirer: "You never experience it?"
Tom Clancy: "Writer's block is a term invented by the writing community to justify their laziness. My success is nothing more than that I have the determination and stamina [i.e., grit] to sit and get the work done.

• Rule No. 8: Is secret. 

• Rule No. 10: Revise, revise, revise. I cannot stress this enough [...] if someone challenges you to a draft-off. When the ref blows the whistle and your opponent goes, “26 drafts!,” you’ll bust out with “216!” and send ’em to the mat.  

• Rule No. 11: There are no rules.

The Life of the Novelist: Intoxicating and Free

In an interview posted on The Telegraph (14 Oct 2011), Martin Amis shared with Edmundo Paz Soldán, the Bolivian novelist and professor, that novelists are the "freest of all artists", because, unlike a painter, a novelist isn't "confined by a square on the wall", unlike a musician, an artist isn't confined to "musical scales", unlike a poet, a novelist isn't confined to "the disciplines of verse", and, unlike a filmmaker, a novelist doesn't "have actors; producers; money pressures of any kind." Amis said,

The process of writing a novel [...] is intoxicating. You can do absolutely anything; you are the freest of all artists. You’re not confined by a square on the wall or musical scales or the disciplines of verse, and you’re certainly freer than a film-maker who is dependent on the weather when he goes out to make his world. And it’s completely uncollaborative – you don’t have actors; producers; money pressures of any kind. 

I'll reiterate that novelists, or writers in general, should not have "money pressures of any kind", because a writer should not write for money but he or she should write about a passionate topic, which will, consequently, help a writer maintain a sufficient level of motivation and inspiration, which is needed, because like Willie shared with Lesser in The Tenants (2005), "Man, I tell you, this writing stuff is no joke." "Baby, it's a long, hard, lonely life."

The Best Way to Handle Rejection?

Po Bronson, the writer of the international bestseller Bombardiers, reportedly advised that the best way to handle rejection is to begin writing your next book before the inevitable "dozens and dozens" rejections arrive in your inbox. Bronson advised:

Failure is part of it. You will be rejected dozens and dozens of times. The best way to prepare for it is to have something else in the works by the time the rejection letter arrives. Invest your hope in the next project. Learning to cope with rejection is a good trait to develop.

I would say that Bronson's method isn't the best way to deal with rejection. I would advise a writer to, simply, not take rejection personally, and, like Bronson encouraged, start writing your next book. 

Median Author Income!

Per the Authors Guild, their Author Income survey is "the most comprehensive study of its kind in the U.S. to date." For the 2023 survey, the Authors Guild surveyed: "Thirty-six other organizations, including Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Ingram, B&N Press, PEN America, African American Literature Book Club [...] and 5,699 published authors."

Per the 2023 Author Income survey: "[...] the median book income (including advances, royalties, and fees from licensing and subsidiary rights) for full-time authors in 2022 was $10,000 [...]"

Therefore, per the Authors Guild, in 2023, 50% of full-time writers earned less than $10,000, while 50% earned more than $10,000. 

I won't share on what side of the median I fall on, but I do suspect that "full-time" is hyperbolic, because I suspect that, unlike Harry Lesser, most writers can't write full-time on a $10,000 income - especially if they live in The Big Apple.