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What the Frag is 'Prolific,' Anyway?
Jan. 1st, 2022 11:35 amWelcome to the second entry of my blog series on Prolificity. (And if you weren't already familiar, you now know to expect Transformers-based swear-words in my blog entries! Woot.)
So... what *does* 'prolific' mean?
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you might be like me: you want to be Prolific, and your idea of Prolificity is based on some writer (other than yourself) whom you deem to be Prolific. Maybe it's someone like Stephen King - or maybe it's someone you know. (I'm just assuming you don't know Stephen King. Sorry if that was overly bold of me.) Maybe it's even someone in your own fandom.
You know... THAT writer?
The one who effortlessly posts multiple times a week and never breaks a sweat? Of course you do. Every fandom has at least one. Those are the people I always look to with mingled awe and envy, wondering how the hell they manage to *do* it. And until now, my standard of what 'prolific' means has always been based on those people.
I tell myself, "Hey, if so-and-so can do it, there's no reason I can't." Except, of course, there *are* reasons. The biggest being that I'm a different person, with different needs, interests and strengths - such as writing speed. Not to mention a different life situation, different set of obligations, and probably a different capacity for cranking out the words. (Because news-flash, we all have different capacities.)
For me, Step One of my Prolificity project has been to disentangle the idea of 'prolific' from my mental image of That Writer, who performs seemingly impossible feats of productivity on a daily basis, and to come up with a more personal definition.
I had to ask myself: What does *my* version of Prolificity look like? I knew it wasn't going to look like Stephen King's version, or the versions exemplified by the fan authors I think of as 'prolific,' but a version specific to myself. I'll talk about how I came to that definition, but for now... what about you? What is *your* definition of 'prolific?' Is it a certain word-count? Posting at a certain frequency? Or is it a vague sense of 'wanting to be more like so-and-so?' Add your comments! I'd love to hear about it.
So... what *does* 'prolific' mean?
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you might be like me: you want to be Prolific, and your idea of Prolificity is based on some writer (other than yourself) whom you deem to be Prolific. Maybe it's someone like Stephen King - or maybe it's someone you know. (I'm just assuming you don't know Stephen King. Sorry if that was overly bold of me.) Maybe it's even someone in your own fandom.
You know... THAT writer?
The one who effortlessly posts multiple times a week and never breaks a sweat? Of course you do. Every fandom has at least one. Those are the people I always look to with mingled awe and envy, wondering how the hell they manage to *do* it. And until now, my standard of what 'prolific' means has always been based on those people.
I tell myself, "Hey, if so-and-so can do it, there's no reason I can't." Except, of course, there *are* reasons. The biggest being that I'm a different person, with different needs, interests and strengths - such as writing speed. Not to mention a different life situation, different set of obligations, and probably a different capacity for cranking out the words. (Because news-flash, we all have different capacities.)
For me, Step One of my Prolificity project has been to disentangle the idea of 'prolific' from my mental image of That Writer, who performs seemingly impossible feats of productivity on a daily basis, and to come up with a more personal definition.
I had to ask myself: What does *my* version of Prolificity look like? I knew it wasn't going to look like Stephen King's version, or the versions exemplified by the fan authors I think of as 'prolific,' but a version specific to myself. I'll talk about how I came to that definition, but for now... what about you? What is *your* definition of 'prolific?' Is it a certain word-count? Posting at a certain frequency? Or is it a vague sense of 'wanting to be more like so-and-so?' Add your comments! I'd love to hear about it.
