Stephen King: Can a Novelist Be Too Productive? (2015)

I'm reminded of Lovecraft, who would use a thesaurus to pad his paid-by-the-word word counts by inserting various adjectives that sounded scary but didn't actually mean anything in context.

Would be interesting to know, his work process to achieve that output. I'm reading "Deep Work", and I bet Stephen King, did the "lock yourself" and write until it's finished or something among those lines (avoiding all distractions)

Reminds me of when George RR Martin asked King, "How the fuck do you write so many books so fast?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0

King was my favorite writer growing up. I read "Firestarter" in 6th grade, and then continued working through about 20 or so more of his works until graduation from HS. I was "that kid", always had my nose buried in a paperback from the library, usually one of his. His works were like familiar friends to me. I could step into nearly any library or bookstore and find myself absorbed into some small town in Maine, or perhaps a more fantastical setting in some cases. Some books I remember better than others, some left me frustrated at the end (looking at you "Cell"), but mostly I just felt like I was a hanger-on, privileged to be hitching a ride into King's imagination. It wasn't just his imagination though, it was his experience as a human that I think I really craved. It sounds sort of funny to say I learned a lot about human nature and society from reading his books (and reading them in the 2000's no less, 20+ years after many of them were written), but I did. His characters were never stupid or shallow or boring just because they were female. His characters had flaws and issues, motivations and fears, and the world around them was not often a nice or sensible place. I can relate to that, and I needed to relate to that growing up.

I don't read his books as often now, but I do love the man and his works for how much they mean to me. I never regretted reading any of them (even ones I may not have finished). I'm glad he doesn't regret writing them either.

Favorite quote from that piece that I think applies to many of us, in any creative field:

> But I also understand that life is short, and that in the end, none of us is prolific. The creative spark dims, and then death puts it out. William Shakespeare, for instance, hasn’t produced a new play for 400 years. That, my friends, is a long dry spell.

> posting

I don't think you're ever going to persuade a given HN user to stop posting content here. But to order 'we' to stop deeming content relevant and worthy for the rest of the community (by up-voting — which is what I think you meant) is rather laughable.

The community decides what it wants to make popular, not you or I alone...