What do Newman, Berry and Deaver Have in Common?

I just returned from Love Is Murder, the outstanding mystery conference held in Chicago. The days were full of informative sessions about the craft of writing.

But buried were a few tidbits that I bet most people glossed over: How hard successful authors work.

Sharan Newman talked about being given 5 months to write one of her books, a non-fiction reference work. Each day she would first care for her mother who has diabetes, and then go to her office and work until the end of the day. That was it. That was the sum and total of her existence.

Steve Berry only quit his full-time law practice last year. He had four attorneys working for him. That was his "regular" job on top of writing a historic thriller a year. Before his first book sold, he trained himself to write a big book a year because he wanted to be with a New York publishing house, producing a book a year. So even BEFORE he had a contract or an opportunity, he wanted the mindset and discipline he knew he'd need to reach his goal.

Jeff Deaver told me he rarely talks about how hard he works. He doesn't come to conferences to rain on people's parades. But he spends 8 to 12 hours a day "in a dark room" working on his books. It takes him 8 months to research a book, BEFORE he begins the actual writing. Then he's on the road 3 months--or as he put it "three months of one hotel after another"--to promote his new work.

All of this is in concert with Malcolm Gladwell's new book Outliers, where he notes it typically takes someone 10,000 years of effort to achieve mastery.

There's a reason Sharan, Steve and Jeff are such successful authors. They've worked hard to achieve their goals. We want to think that success is luck and talent, but it's clear to me that there's a component too easy to dismiss: time spent on one's craft.