Mothership Question #7: Time for Prolific Writing?

I woke up this morning, feeling under the weather, so I have not been doing much writing today. Sorry about that. I had planned to put together a few more pieces for you to read today, but analgesics have dulled my writing ambitions along with my pain. I did download three scientific papers this afternoon that I plan to write about this evening and over the weekend, so you can be looking for those pieces. Until then, I hope that my answer to this week's question from the Mothership will satisfy you.

Question How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc., find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?

I write while sitting on the toilet.

No, honestly, I don't do that! But I do write or read nearly constantly.

Seriously, I have no social life. When I say "no social life", I mean it. I don't own a TV (that alone gives me many extra hours in the day that most people don't have), nor do I go out for dinner, movies or concerts, and I rarely go out for drinks. I do go to museums and libraries as often as I can, though. And when I am not writing, I am reading.

Unlike the confessions made by most of the people who write blogs for Seed Media, I typically do spend a fair amount of time working on each piece that I write. Yesterday's entry, The Rise of the Feathered Dragons, for example, took four solid hours to write, and at least twice as many hours to research (compile my notes, download the images and format the final product, read the four original papers cited in the piece, email and telephone Jerry Harris with questions, and read some background material to make sure I got my facts straight and wouldn't make an ass of myself after I published the final piece).

Book reviews take a fair length of time to write too; 2, or sometimes 3 hours, depending upon the book, while reading the average book takes anywhere from 3-5 days (I read on the subway, and sometimes in the evenings, if I have the time and energy).

But the champion of all time investments is Birds in the News, which I publish every Monday morning. That one entry requires a time investment of something close to 8 hours, on average, to read all the news stories, to sometimes find alternative (better-written) versions of the same story, to locate suitable images, obtain photographer permission for use of the featured image, and to format the piece. So I devote much of my Sundays to putting together each issue of Birds in the News.

But that said, there are some pieces that took surprisingly little time for me to write. For example, despite its length, Lost Bird of Paradise Found, In Paradise, took me 65 minutes to research and write, from booting up my computer to the final product that you see if you click on that link. And that time investment includes locating all those images, too. (Can you tell that I am still quite proud of that piece?).

Because I don't have a social life to speak of, this is not a big deal. It keeps me busy doing something I enjoy and care about deeply. But I have not done much creative writing as a result of my blog writing activities. That is one thing that I feel badly about, and one thing that I should try to rectify since I do have several book ideas, both fiction and non-fiction, that I should pursue.

This piece took me approximately 45 minutes to write, if you are interested to know.

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