101 Reasons to Stop Writing

Today 101 Reasons is launching what I hope will be a regular, weekly series of interviews. Through these in-depth, hard-hitting sessions with successful writers, publishing professionals and delusional amateurs, we will explore in greater depth what it means to be a writer, to work in the publishing industry, and to love literature enough to want to procreate with it. These won’t be your typical suck-up advertorials, with softball questions about how to break into the business, and what pen to use. If you learn anything from these interviews, it’ll be how much you suck by comparison.

Evermore, the most recent product from the Lynn Viehl novel factory.

This week we’re talking with Lynn Viehl, author of, well, a whole lot of books. If you’re not familiar with Viehl, that may be because she’s a chameleon, constantly changing her byline to suit the market. She spent ten years writing before her big break, producing twenty-two manuscripts and collecting over one thousand rejections. Since selling her first novel some eight years ago, she’s sold at least 38 novels in five genres, most of which end in “… Romance”. (I say ‘at least’ because she’s probably sold more since this interview.)

38 novels, in less than nine years. Just think about that. She makes Stephen King look like J.D. Salinger (yes, there are two ways to take that). If there were ten, maybe twenty more novelists like her, they’d own the midlist.

Lynn Viehl is to the writing community what India is to the IT industry, the kind of hyper-efficient word machine that makes reviewers scoff, tenured literary authors sneer, and part-time amateur writers burn with raw envy, poorly disguised as derision. She publishes under at least six pseudonyms, because Barnes & Noble refuses to name an entire bookshelf after her. She also finds time to run her blog Paperback Writer, regularly posting advice and information about writing to help you maintain the delusion that you could ever be as successful as her.

Despite representing everything this blog stands against, I have to admit I’m kind of crushing on her right now — because as you’ll see below, she rocks this interview like it was a pandering plug piece on The View. She came to this knife fight wearing plate armour. She took my vitriol and made a martini out of it. No wonder she makes the medium bucks.

If you’re expecting this interview to delve into Viehl’s writing schedule, where she finds inspiration, how she balances writing with raising children, where she thinks the industry is going, etc., you are so on the wrong blog.

You’ve published novels under the names Sheila Kelly, Rebecca Kelly, Lynn Viehl, S.L. Viehl, Gena Hale and Jessica Hall. Which one am I speaking to right now?

Oh, just call me Legion. All the guys in Perdition do.

Does using so many identities reduce your tax burden? If one of your pseudonyms commits a felony, can you still publish under the others?

What tax burden? Right, you probably didn’t get the press release about my ordination. I’ve incorporated as the leader of a chicklit evangelist movement: The Fashion-Driven Life. You can read about it in my upcoming bestseller, “What Shoes Would Jesus Wear With That?” As for the felony question, if Stephen King can still publish under his own name after writing “Lisey’s Story” and calling it a romance, I think we’re all safe.

You’ve published 38 novels to date, across 5 genres, in a professional career spanning less than nine years. How do you define the term ‘hack’?

Let me check Webster’s. Oh, look, what a nice picture of James Patterson. Seriously, a hack is someone who writes slower than me. Which is everyone.

What do you say to the 37 unpublished writers who’ve missed their chance at a debut novel because of you?

I’m getting ready to pitch my next series, so don’t give up your day job.

You started writing seriously in 1989, and you wrote some 22 unpublished novels in the decade before your big break. Have you since recycled some of that trash into something publishable?

I’ll let you in on a secret: I’ve not written a single new word in the last nine years. Whenever my editor wants a book, I just open the trunk, dust off one of the old rejects, and send it in. Once you’ve hit the bestseller list, you can pretty much publish your grocery list. Speaking of bestsellers, do you want an advanced reading copy of my next novel, “Bread, Eggs and Milk”?

With sixty novels under your belt, when do you think you’ll be ready to write a good one?

I’m waiting until Updike croaks. I figure the field will be clear then, and I can stun the publishing world with my long-hidden genius. Or when I empty out the trunk, whichever comes first.

You primarily write romance fiction, but you also write science fiction, dark fantasy and inspirational Christian fiction. Which fans make the better lovers?

Hard to say. See, the romance fans always bring you candy and flowers, but the SF fans are great to have around whenever the computer crashes. The dark fantasy fans never run out of whips and chains. I will say that all that praying for forgiveness the inspirational fans do in bed can be mildly annoying at times. I mean, you’re already going to hell for your internet porn addiction, how’s a little illicit sex with an author going to make things worse?

Are you writing Christian fiction as penance for your dark fantasy novels? How many ChristFic books does it take to keep a dark fantasy author out of Hell?

I write Christian fiction to fool my mom; she thinks I’ve only published ten books. Last time I checked with Satan (research for the next dark fantasy) he was clearing out a whole new level for inspirational authors. Apparently royalties are way up. Anyway, when I die I get to run the eternal torment section. All I have to do is breathe.

For the last few years you’ve been using voice recognition software to write, to reduce arthritis pain, and you now wear trifocal glasses to read. Is your body trying to tell you something?

Yeah, donate a lot to that brain transplant research foundation.

What are your failure criteria for writing? Under what circumstances would you stop?

Anyone who quits before I do, fails. I’ll probably have to stop when I die. Unless that brain transplant thing works out.

Who do you think should stop writing?

Besides you? Annie Proulx. I mean, once you’ve done the secret gay cowboy story, and gotten stiffed for Best Picture on the movie version, and throw a tantrum in print about how it’s just a conspiracy by the homophobes at the academy to keep you from your much-deserved fourth Oscar, it’s all downhill from there.

It’s a good thing that writing dozens of romance-themed novels hasn’t left Viehl bitter or jaded. Feel free to discuss in the comments how inadequate she makes you feel. And check out her blog Paperback Writer, where she’s much less funny.

Tune in next week, when we talk to … someone else.