Well over a year ago, before I was truly “all in” on making a return to a writing career, I was having a rare, face-to-face conversation with another writer who made a comment roughly on these lines: “So many younger writers these days seem to make a living by writing book after book after book, staying alive by constantly producing.” I think I groaned, said that I could never do that and wouldn’t want to; that writing was just too damned hard, and I needed at least a year to finish a book.

Yeah.

Times change and it’s good to be adaptable. My writing speed has picked up and I’ve produced a good amount of work this year, but nothing close to the output of some of the writers in my twitter stream. Mind-boggling daily words counts, revision, copyedits, conventions, blog postings, book promotions and contests, charitable efforts, social media . . . I stagger in fatigue just thinking about it.

It’s fairly clear that I’m a slacker. On the other hand, I’m also inspired. Let’s call the phenomenon “competitive productivity.” If so many other writers (even some with day jobs!) can spend so many hours every day on writing-related tasks and produce results then what’s my excuse?

No excuses.

Thanks for the inspiration, y’all.