The Next Big Author

From Louise Rose-Innes, who will be profiled here on the blog next week:

The Next Big Author – Closing Date May 31st 2011. Supported by Bloomsbury, Random House, Orion, Little Brown and Hodder and Stoughton.

There is still time to enter for feedback from the publishers of authors such as JK Rowling, Dan Brown and Terry Pratchett for the best opening chapters written in May. Please visit www.thenextbigauthor.com for details of how to enter via the competition rules on the left hand side of the site’s homepage.

If the time left seems short, below are a few examples of famous authors who penned completed books in short periods.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange: “The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d’esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence.”

Mickey Spillane: His most famous Mike Hammer Novel, I, the Jury, was written in nine days. It sold 7 million copies in three years

From The Guardian: “Alexander Dumas had a 100-louis bet (a decent sum in 1845) that he could write the first volume of Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge in just three days. Powered by a steady supply of coffee (his manuscripts are splattered with it), he pulled it off within six hours to spare with scarcely a crossing out.
In 1941, Jack Kerousac dashed off 200 short stories in eight weeks, thanks to a regime of benzedrene pellets. Stephen King took just three nights to finish The Running Man while hooked up to a Budweiser drip.”

Not that we at SA Romance recommend drugs and alcohol as the solution for writing quickly!