Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

Living At Pulp Speed Five

Here I Go Again…

A challenge to myself and a way for some of you to follow closely along and learn. That’s right, a crazy idea on both sides. See more below on this.

Let me back into explaining this.

Pulp Speed comes from Star Trek War Speed and is a way to sort of shorthand the speed that old pulp writers used to write at regularly for years.

Pulp Speed One is 1 million words per year or about 83,000 words per month. So if you write 83,000 words in a month, you wrote at Pulp Speed that month.

Pulp Speed Two is 1.2 million words in a year or 100,000 words per month.

It goes up by .2 million words per year from there for each speed. So Pulp Speed Five is 1.8 million words in a year. Or about 150,000 words per month.

So my challenge to myself is to write ten novels in 100 days.

I count any words that will be consumable, as a friend of mine called them. So here is the math.

I tend to write 40,000 to 50,000 novels. Plus my blogs that I will combine into the book will add up to over 150,000 per month or Pulp Speed Five. (The blogs about the challenge will be every three or four days, so the how-to book doesn’t get stupidly long with 100 daily blogs. Plus I want to write about other stuff along the way.)

In other words, in one hundred days I hope to write eleven books. Ten novels and one non-fiction writing book for the above cover.

So I am going to start this on the 9th of this month (September) because I like to start things on a Sunday. Which means this will end around December 18th, the week before Christmas and I can fire something else up for the first of the year.

Great way to end a rough year, write ten novels and a non-fiction book.

And I have a lot of things happening between now and Christmas, including a major workshop and some trips, so should be fun to follow along.

And that brings me to my next offer to all of you.

PERSONAL FOLLOW ALONG…

I’m going to open this up to no more than ten people.

Every day for all 100 days I will send you an email telling you exactly how the day went, the writing, my thoughts on the challenge, what the writing was like, everything. (Not the work in progress, just the stuff around the writing and the process and my thinking as each day goes by, starting and writing and ending ten novels. Including the bad days.)

Again, the blogs here will be every three or four days about the process will be for the book, general stuff that might cross over some with the letters. But the letters every day will be a ton more detailed. The idea is to help those signed up figure out how to get past their own issues and myths by watching me deal with many of them.

So this is a way to really watch someone like me write ten novels, up close. Might help you break down a lot of writing myths.

And you can ask me questions at any point along the way.

Then as a book gets finished, I will send it to WMG Publishing, they will do a copyedit on it, get it quickly formatted in ePub or mobi form and I will give you a code to get it. So within two or three or so weeks of me finishing a book, you will get to read it. (Timing depends on how quickly Kris can read it and WMG can do a rough of the book.) No matter what, it will be sent to each person signed up way, way before it is published in Smith’s Monthly and then later on stand-alone.

So this will be ten novels of mine you will not only be closely watching me writing it, but get to read quickly after it is done. (I do not want comments on the books.)

Also, another bonus as part of this. Since you are watching me write, I hope you will be writing as well, so if you want to send me anything you started and finished in the same 100 days, I will read it. Short stories or novels. You will send them to me after the challenge is over, not during. It could be one story or a lot of novels, doesn’t matter. This is just a bonus for you to get some reader feedback from me if you want it. Not required.

The cost to jump into this is $500. First come, first in. Only ten writers. Send the fee to dean@deanwesleysmith.com which is the WMG Publishing account.

If I do not get at least 7 novels finished by the week before Christmas, WMG will refund your money completely even though I have sent you 100 letters.

So let me put this in a check-list.

— Cost $500.
— Limited to first 10 paid.
— A letter every day from me for 100 days about the process of writing novels starting September 9th. (even on my bad days.)
— Questions about the process when you want.
— Early read on every book I write.
— Anything you start and finish writing inside the hundred days, you can send to me to read after the challenge is over.

Any questions, feel free to ask. Jump in by paying to Paypal, no need to ask me if there are spots open. I will announce here when it fills.

9 Comments

  • Topaz

    Fun Challenge. I was waiting for this post ever since it came up in the comments.
    Wishing you lots of fun.

    I started my year with pulp speed 0.3., peaked 0.6 in July, and wrote with 0.45 in August.

    I’d love to reach pulp speed 1 this year at least for one month. Now I am doing the Math, checking and searching where I might find 3 hours a day as my personal follow along challenge. Tough challenge all by itself with day job and little children. But with the Nani coming up, adopting your challenge of 100 days sounds way more fun to try.

    • dwsmith

      And really good idea of adapting it for your own schedule and figuring out a way to make it work for you. Great thinking there.

    • allynh

      HA! I was not paying attention to the date!

      By starting now, and doing 10 books in 100 days, that is NaNoWAYMORE than NaNoWriMo. YES!

      • dwsmith

        I am not a fan of NaNoWriMo because they push people to write sloppy. All ten of my novels will be finished novels when the 100 days ends.

        • allynh

          Dean, It’s NaNoWAYMORE. Get it. No? Oh, Dean. You are no fun. HA!

          BTW, I finished the second Jane Hawk book and ordered the third. It feels like an episodic TV series. I’ll need to read the books again once I have the third.

      • Topaz

        I am going to write clean first draft. I am never going back to garbage nano writing ever. That is no fun to me.