Introducing: "The 10M Project"

Join Me on the Road to Mastery

If you have not set up your domicile under a very large stone for the last fifteen years or so, you are probably familiar with the 10,000-hour Rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. The source of this idea, into which he did further investigation and drew his conclusions, was an article in American Scientist by Herbert Simon and William Chase that stated the following:

There are no instant experts in chess—certainly no instant masters or grandmasters. There appears not to be on record any case (including Bobby Fischer) where a person reached grandmaster level with less than about a decade's intense preoccupation with the game. We would estimate, very roughly, that a master has spent perhaps 10,000 to 50,000 hours staring at chess positions…

There are of course exceptions to this rule, as with all rules, and you must have a baseline level of talent, of natural aptitude. But if that basic ability is present in a person for a given domain, nothing beats a very long and focused period of practice. To master something, you must for all intents and purposes dedicate your life to it. At minimum you’re looking at one to three decades of careful skill development.

My chosen field is fiction writing. Primarily novels, but short stories as well. For the purposes of this project I am grouping the two forms together. All fiction writing “counts”. All non-fiction writing does not “count”. Yes, non-fiction writing will develop your skill further than doing nothing but there are techniques specific to storycraft that are not attended to in writing non-fiction. So it’s stories only that I’m talking about here.

My intent is to master this skill of writing fiction. While it may take more or less than 10,000 hours, in my experience as a professional and classically trained musician, for most highly technical fields, the number is an excellent yardstick and generally correct enough for us to use it in our pursuit.

What is “The 10M Project”?

10M stands for Ten Million Words. Simply put, in this field of writing I find tracking word counts much easier than hours spent. As Stephen King has said about reading and writing, we need to learn to do it in small sips as well as big gulps. Meaning sometimes we only have fifteen minutes to write before something else demands our attention. Sometimes we have three hours in which to work. We must use both and a word count total makes recording our progress much easier I think.

The specific number is just a rough approximation based off my personal average pace. It may not be yours, but nevertheless I think it will be another rule of thumb that translates well to real world practice. So, I average about 1,000 words of fiction per hour. This depends on the density of the material, certainly. Sometimes it’s 500. Sometimes it’s nudging 2,000. Anyway, 1,000 words per hour times 10,000 hours gives us 10,000,000 words to mastery. This is “more guidelines that what you’d call actual rules”, but I believe it serves the purpose of mastering fiction very well.

Now, we are looking at achieving this goal at around a decade if we are working at a blistering pace. Twenty to thirty years is the more likely pace. This is becoming the top 1% of the top 1% (maybe of another 1%) we’re talking about here. You have to be married to the game. This is not something for the faint of heart. That suits me well. Perhaps it will suit some of you as well. I like lifelong projects. That probably came from music. We’re climbing narrative-Everest one word-step at a time. The only way it can be done.

About That David Eddings Quote

There is another popular idea that makes the rounds in the circles in which people embark on the quest to master fiction writing, this one by fantasy novelist David Eddings:

My advice to the young writer is likely to be unpalatable in an age of instant successes and meteoric falls. I tell the neophyte: Write a million words–the absolute best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin.

Now, who am I to question this? Me, the one-novel-to-his-name indie writer against a major bestseller. But I will say that I don’t believe you need to throw away your early efforts. My very first short stories are available on this Substack page and yes, they aren’t great. But also, some people enjoyed them, and it’s my belief that you deprive readers of work they might really like out of some kind of false modesty. Plenty of people write an excellent first book. My first novel has been flatteringly well received. I am certainly much better now than then, but why on earth would I not make that book available to people? This is no guarantee you’ll write a banger novel out the gate. It’s no guarantee you’ll like mine. But some people do and that’s the point. As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m out to entertain people and I have accomplished with my first book. So far so good.

What I do think Eddings is right about is having some kind of big enough, but not impossibly daunting, milestone that lets you yourself and the world know you mean business. If I write one 61k word novel and publish it, as I’ve done, and then disappear, I was not dedicated to mastery. That’s fine if that’s what you want. There is no shame in being a hobbyist. But I am a professional. Maybe you are too. And so we are interested in hunting down the big goals. But along that path we can celebrate all the small wins. And the medium wins. In the context of 10M, one million words is the initial major milestone and so I (and maybe you, read on!) will be targeting that first.

What he’s also right about is that this level of dedication goes against all the conditioning we have to seek instant gratification. There are no shortcuts here. Just hours and hours and hours at the keyboard. I’m here for it, though. I hope you are too.

An Invitation

Since Substack is a kind of platform for building community, as well as showcasing our writing, I want to invite Substack fiction writers to join me on this journey. No pressure if this isn’t up your alley, but to all those who are interested, here is what I propose:

1. I will be updating my progress at least twice a month in a dedicated “The 10M Project” Section here on The Write Books. I’ll even provide a super fancy little bar graph. I am starting this by including every word of fiction, published or not, I have written since embarking on this mastery quest.

2. If you would like to post your stats and “build in public” (as the kids say), I will add your numbers and links to your work, both on Substack and from external links (within reason), for readers and anyone interested in this undertaking to follow and read your stuff. I’ll make bar graphs for you too! It might also be fun to set up conversational interviews at some point, talking about craft and goals and things like that.

3. To participate in #2 I will ask that you become a paid supporter at $5/month. This serves a couple purposes. First, it helps me justfy the time I’ll need to create the posts and organize all our numbers and links. Second, it gives you the proverbial “skin in the game” to keep adding to your word counts. For whatever reason, we humans value things we pay for, even if it’s a really small amount, more than free stuff. You’re more likely to go to the gym if you pay a membership fee. I think you’re more likely to pursue The 10M Project milestones if you have to put a little bit of money behind it. And that’s the ultimate goal with all this. For us to become excellent by putting in the work.

I understand this introduces some factors some of you might find uncomfortable, like competition and a level of transparency you might not enjoy. That’s totally okay. This is just an offer. But I think it might be fun. Any competition will be in the spirit of spurring each other on to greatness and I think we could do a good job of encouraging everybody involved.

Whether anyone besides me wants to do this, I’ll be here updating my journey. Maybe this 10M thing is a solo project. Maybe we’re putting a band together. Maybe it’s a movement in the making. But whatever it is, the goal is to put more truly great fiction out into the world and to realize our potential through dedicated practice. And that’s a really excellent thing to strive for.

Where I Stand

My total fiction output since I started this career path is 198,726 words. So about 20% towards the first milestone and a whopping 2% of the way towards the magic mastery number. But that’s a-okay. This is an epic undertaking and 2% of elite level mastery is nothing to scoff at for about a year and a half of often-not-so-dedicated work. I plan to up the pace considerably but even still, we’re getting there.

So, I hope you’ll follow along with this journey. If you’re a fiction writer, I hope you’ll join me. And here’s to getting better all the time and putting out great stories and books for everyone to enjoy!