Heinlein is one of my favorite Sci-Fi authors — if you haven’t seen it already, watch Predestination which is based on a Heinlein short-story for a nice mindfuck and a general idea of what a great writer (and thinker) Heinlein was.

During some reading about his work I stumbled across six simple rules Heinlein set up for aspiring writers:

1. You must write
2. Finish what you started
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order
4. You must put your story on the market
5. You must keep it on the market until it has sold
6. Start working on something else

I love it. It is minimalist, it is based on free market principles, it is about doing the work.

Robert Heinlein was a libertarian which shines through his writing. And his approach to being a writer goes in the same direction: Do the work and let the people decide if you stuff is good enough or not. In the end: Not all good writing sells, but all writing that sells is good.

How far can I get as an indie writer?

I’ve decided to apply Heinlein’s rules to my own pursuit as a writer some time ago. 1,000 words a day is my minimum goal which will results in at least 365K words a year.

This leaves me with at least 4 full novels by the end of each year. By doing my own editing, translating, and cover design, I can keep the cost low. The marketing is a different beast, sure. I’m writing this blog, doing YouTube, and writing short stories on top to get something going.

Will I succeed?

Only time will tell—and the free market.

I watched the newest Frankenstein remake on Netflix yesterday. Guillermo del Toro was behind it — one of the few filmmakers in Hollywood I still get genuinely excited about.

Still, I had my doubts. It’s a Netflix production, and quality on that platform is hard to find. But this time, they really delivered. Frankenstein is a fantastic film that honors the source material while adding meaningful details of its own.

One of the main things I thought about afterward was how del Toro managed to do something Hollywood almost always fails at: creating a good remake.

We live in an era where Jurassic Park gets remade every two years, and most superhero films feel like a variation of the previous twenty. Almost all Hollywood remakes of today are terrible.

But Frankenstein isn’t.

So how did del Toro succeed where so many others fail?

I think it comes down to genuine love for the source material. Whenever I’ve seen del Toro talk about his films in interviews, he always radiates a deep affection for the stories he tells — and Frankenstein is no exception.

By contrast, when today’s filmmakers discuss Terminator, Star Wars, or Ghostbusters, they rarely sound like fans. Instead, they talk about how they can “adapt it for modern audiences” – which is just code for pervert it until it’s not like the original anymore at all.

It often seems that many modern moviemakers never even liked the originals they were handed. They’re just thrilled to have the chance to reshape them in their own image. Sure, del Toro had a vision for Frankenstein too — but his vision came from a place of admiration. In contrast, people like Kathleen Kennedy often seem to approach their projects from a sense of superiority, as if they could “do it better.”

But you can’t — not when the original was already great.

You can make a good Star Wars movie, sure. But you’ll never outdo George Lucas’s Star Wars. You can make a solid Matrix sequel, but you’ll never surpass the first one.

When you take over an already successful story, your first job is to honor what came before. That’s exactly what del Toro did with Frankenstein. He new Frankenstein was already great before him. So he didn’t try to outdo it; he simply tried to honor what was there before him and added his own style only for as long as it didn’t take anything from the original away.

The result is great movie.

There are writers who rely on industrial processes to produce their work. I’ve read that R.L. Stine uses an entire team of ghostwriters. Erle Stanley Gardner did the same with Perry Mason, and there are surely countless other famous authors who have teams of writers, editors, and creatives working for them—without us ever knowing.

AI will only accelerate this way of producing stories. It will also give rise to hustlers who see writing purely as a means to make a quick buck.

A while back, I heard about a guy who mass-produced short erotic stories for Amazon just to make money. He wrote two or three short stories on weekends and sold each for $2.99—a price apparently acceptable for short fiction in that genre. His stories were mostly about tall, heroic men saving damsels in distress, or about vampires and werewolves in steamy fantasy-erotica subgenres. One day, he started making YouTube videos, and it turned out he was an old, bald, overweight, divorced man in his sixties writing for the target demographic of bored housewives. If it sells, it’s fine, I guess.

But does it make him happy?

For a while, I actually considered copying his business model—churning out a few short stories in that genre every week just to make some easy money. But the moment I started, I felt awful about it. I hate writing those kinds of scenes. I don’t enjoy reading explicit fiction. And I couldn’t bring myself to charge $2.99 for 3,000 words of something I wouldn’t even read myself. As simple as it looked, it made my skin crawl. You could offer me a million dollars a year, and I still wouldn’t do it. I just can’t.

Yesterday, I wrote a short horror story about rats infesting a house. I’ll mostly give it away for free. On the days when Amazon won’t let me set the price to zero, I’ll charge less than a dollar for the 4,000-word story. It will never make me rich. It won’t pay my rent. I might make less than minimum wage for it over a lifetime. But I enjoyed writing it. And when I enjoy writing something, I’m pretty sure that some people will enjoy reading it too.

When you love what you do, you do it well. You want to look back at it and feel proud of what you’ve created. But when you write something you don’t care about—and would never read yourself—you’ll just do the bare minimum to get it done.

R.L. Stine clearly loves the genre he writes in. So did Erle Stanley Gardner. They both became successful because of that passion like many other authors. The hustlers will not. Some will make money here and there, sure. But none will be able to look back and say proudly: “I did that, and I’m proud of it.” And none will be happy with what they’ve created, just like the guy writing mass produced short erotica.

I recently came across a woman on YouTube claiming she writes 10,000 words a day. Maybe it was just clickbait, maybe she was exaggerating—or maybe she really does write that much. Who knows? It’s social media—you never really know if people do in real life what they claim online.

But let’s take that number seriously for a moment. What would actually happen if someone wrote 10,000 words every day?

• 10,000 words a day equals 3.65 million words per year
• The average novel is around 60,000 to 80,000 words
• That means at least 45 books a year

Have you ever heard of anyone publishing at that pace?

L. Ron Hubbard is often cited as one of the most prolific writers in history, with around 300 published stories and books (some sources even claim it’s up to 500). If you wrote 10,000 words a day, you’d surpass him within a single decade.

Frankly, that doesn’t sound believable.

I write 1,000 words a day. That’s about an hour of focused writing. Sometimes I write more, but I always make sure to hit at least that minimum.

This habit allows me to finish about four books per year. It also gives me time to write short stories, blog posts, tweets, and scripts for my YouTube channels.

By investing just one hour a day, I’m more productive than most writers I know. And I don’t burn myself out trying to chase 10,000 words. Writing for an hour is enjoyable, energizing—and most days, I can’t wait to return to my story.

Best of all, this schedule leaves me with plenty of time to work on my author platform, manage my tutorial YouTube channel, handle my day job, stay in shape, read, and even enjoy a movie in the evening.

For perspective: Ian Fleming’s Bond novels were typically between 55,000 and 75,000 words. At 1,000 words a day, you could finish a Bond-length novel in about three months—easily.

So why push yourself to write 10,000 words a day? It’s a recipe for burnout. You’ll probably end up hating writing. You’re not going to edit all that content anyway. And you’re definitely not going to publish 45 books a year. Even if you could, who’s going to read them all? Releasing a book every week would overwhelm even your most loyal fans.

Selling four books a year is already a challenge, as most readers have dozens of authors that they follow.

Of course, do what works for you. But writing 1,000 words a day—if you actually do it consistently—can put you on the same productivity level as someone like Stephen King. Doesn’t that already sound impressive enough?

If you want to be a writer—write. It’s that simple.

Basketball players only get good by playing basketball. You only improve at speaking a foreign language by using it. If you want to learn the guitar, well—guess what? You have to play the guitar.

The same goes for writing.

I’ll never understand the people who say they’d love to write a book, and then never sit down and write it. For some reason, writing is seen as something that requires endless thinking, planning, and dreaming—without ever actually starting.

No.

Being a writer works like everything else in life: you have to do it to be it.

The best way to improve is to write every day. Even if it’s just a little. A blog post, a tweet, a page for your book—or maybe just a single sentence. Do that every day, and you will get better.

No matter how bad you are at basketball, if you practice daily for a year, you’ll be better than when you started. The same is true for writing.

So how do you write every day?

• Write at the same time each day. This helps turn it into a routine.
• Start with just one sentence. Most days, once you get that first sentence down, you’ll want to keep going.
• Don’t judge your writing. That’s for the editing phase. In the writing phase, your only job is to get the words out of your head and onto the page.
• Mix it up. Work on your book, sure—but also write tweets, blog posts, short stories, or journal entries. Give your brain variety, especially when you’re tired of one project.
• Read a little every day. Reading a great chapter by a skilled writer will teach you something—and it’ll motivate you to create your own badass chapter.
• Put your writing out there. You can’t be a real writer without readers. Some readers will be kind, some will be critical—even harsh. But you’ll always learn something from them.
• Use self-publishing. Traditional publishing is filled with gatekeepers. They’ll reject bold ideas and challenging stories if they don’t fit the current socio-political narrative. So fuck ’em. Use social media, your website, and self-publishing to do your own thing.
• Keep learning. See everything you write—and everything you read—as a chance to grow. Even bad writing helps if you learn from it.

Now stop reading—and write something.
Then do it again tomorrow.
And the day after that.
And the day after that…