The most prolific author in the world, Ryoki Inoue, published over 1000 books. He has basically the same advice.

> "The secret of the creative process is in 98% of sweat, 1% of talent and 1% of luck."

The least prolific very successfull author in the world was perhaps Juan Rulfo. He only wrote 300 pages in his whole life and lived to be 68. It is really hard to explain how was he able to produce such master works.

Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) and Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights) are two other important writers in this category.

> “…hard to explain how was he able to produce such master works.”

I’ve heard that to be a good writer one should also be a good reader. Maybe they’re a good reader and had one great story in their mind. Having produced it, they were satisfied?

I just read a bio of the author Jack London. He suffered terrible poverty and dismal employment prospects as a youth. Writing was an escape. He produced a lot of mediocre work in order to get paid.

> I’ve heard that to be a good writer one should also be a good reader.

Yes, but you need to learn to linger over the text. To read it slowly in order to analyze how all the different parts fit together, to critically examine the overall structure, to consider how you would have or could rewrite it, to drill down into even the choice of words and how synonyms could have changed meaning and interpretation, to re-read it over and over across the years to see how your own life experiences change how you read the exact same content.

IMO not many people are either built for that, or are willing to expend that effort. Even I stumble - a lot.

> “Yes, but…”

Why contrarian? This comment further elaborates on the very idea I was pointing towards. From what well does a singular piece of writing spring?

And you describe it here—quite possibly from someone who reads deeply, and writes infrequently.

How many thousands of pages did he write and discard?

Yes, because literally everyone has the same advice about all fields of endeavor.

"1% of luck" is so meaningless.

Did you have to be born to the right parents at the right time, or just avoid a car accident?

And the ability or desire to work hard has some very soft dependencies.

Yeah 50/50 feels more accurate. The great success is equally dependant on both things. Actually probably more on luck since I know plenty of lazy but lucky successful people, but no hard working unlucky successful people.

Based on my experience it's more about being able to recognize an opportunity when it shows up and being good enough at your craft to take it. But no one can tell you what that chance will look like. Maybe it's a smart question to the right person during a hackathon, or maybe it's being really into graph theory and applying to a small newcomer company called Google.

For a concrete example: in his book "On writing" Stephen King details his life up until the point he hit it big with "Carrie". You could say he was lucky for the book to sell as good as it did, but that would require ignoring that he had been writing (and getting rejected!) non-stop for roughly 20 years.

Well, the part you can control is the effort, so there's not much use in worrying about the other two. But it's mostly a feel-good white lie.

James Patterson would argue that the secret is 98% luck, 98% the sweat of ghostwriters and -96% talent.

As an ex-Navy Seal, and JAG officer who retired for the slow life of owning a hardware store in a sleepy small town, only to accidentally uncover a international multi-million dollar conspiracy with help from the voluptuous town sheriff twenty years my junior... this math all adds up nicely.

And a hundred percent concentrated power of will?