> Wolff wrote “more than sixty” books between 2007 and 2018. That’s 5.5 novels per year, every year, for 11 years, before she hit it big.

> Do any aspects of this job resemble things you’ve done before, and did you like doing those things? Not “Did you like being known as a person who does those things?” or “Do you like having done those things?” but when you were actually doing them, did you want to stop, or did you want to continue?

I think people like Wolff like writing. Brandon Sanderson is another example. He can't stop. I think they'd do it even if they weren't able to make it as novelists. That's what separates a lot of those people from most others. Sure, some people have a goal and the grit to reach for it, to do that dribbling & shooting practice for six hours a day even if it's not actually fun. But some people have this sort of mania for their work. It's not really sensible to talk about being like them, unless you already are.

That's the point of the article though. They're saying that instead of trying to grit your teeth and push through something you hate to satisfy an arbitrary goal, you should find the thing that you're crazy for enjoying so much and pursue that, because doing it is what the vast majority of your life will actually be spent on

That reminds me of another wolf, Gene Wolfe. He wrote some of the most complex and critically praised science fiction to date, and most of his famous works were done in his free time while working as an industrial engineer. Or for that matter, a certain patent clerk who wrote some really fine physics papers.

There's a short video of two guys parodying what Brandon Sanderson's writing problem is like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcZVAPGE-YE

I think there are plenty of successful authors who don't have the same obsession as Sanderson and Wolff, but they are obsessed in different ways. And I think that's the key: if there's something that you enjoy doing and can find some aspect that you can really obsess over—it doesn't have to be the same as everyone else (probably better if not)—then you might be able to make that work as a fulfilling career.

The best advice about writing for a living I ever got was in a book I read as a young aspiring writer. It was to the effect of "Most people who say they want to write actually want to 'be a writer'. If you can be happy doing anything else for a living, do that instead. Only write if you feel like you'll go crazy if you don't."

The vast majority of the most-successful people in any field, by whatever definition of "success" that field has, are people who would do it even if they weren't successful. You can't fake it. The old saying that "hard work trumps anything else" is an almost-cruel thing to say to kids who don't know any better: A person swimming downstream will exert the same calories as one swimming upstream, do the same work, but end up swimming ten times further.

This may be a place where writing for magazines for instance is a good thing.

Standup comics try out new material on tour, and then save up the bits that work for big gigs and specials. Creative writing isn't that different from joke writing. Write yourself a bunch of short stories, try things out, see what sticks, novelize the good ones. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik was a short story. There are some famous books out there that were originally done as serials.

Do more, but find ways to shed the unsuccessful attempts, or otherwise give yourself permission to fail. If you're not failing occasionally you aren't reaching far enough.

Writing is interesting, though, because there's also a steady stream of writers regurgitating the "I don't like writing, I like having written" line too.

George RR Martin possibly the most famous/contemporary example, but here's a page tracing back recorded instances of it. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/10/18/on-writing/

Interestingly enough, i know some people who love programming. They make side projects, contribute to open source etc. But they kind of hate it as a job.

Paul Graham wrote a nice article about this.

https://www.paulgraham.com/genius.html

In my life, I knew a guy who was obsessed with the Beatles. You couldn't get him to shut up about it. People hated listening to him but he didn't care, he just wanted to talk about the Beatles. Now imagine if he was obsessed with software development - he could change the world.

My first thought when I read this, and it may very well be misinformed, was that she is probably using a team of ghostwriters. Many novelists at that level are. Your name just becomes a brand at a certain point.

And then you have guys like Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, who wrote a single, and quite short, book, and it is vastly better than all the crap those writing multiple books per year can produce.

Asimov was the same apparently, as is Stephen King, its what they do.

it is so exhausting to talk to some people who obviously don't like what they have to do for a living and then expect others to also hate what they do.

I get that it must suck to do some bullshit job you don't want to just so you don't starve, but I studied for the thing I wanted to do, found a job doing what I wanted to, and now someone is paying me relatively well to do the thing I would do on my own time. Then I get called wage slave and capitalism boot licker just because I found someone to pay for my hobby.