I know I’ve been a ghost lately.
I have been buried alive in the math and staring into the abyss of endless Google Colab notebooks…
The ghost of a 19th century postman named Anthony Trollope slapped me right across the mouth.
(And frankly, we all need a good slap from a dead Victorian mail carrier every now and then)
Trollope was one of the most prolific novelists to ever drag a pen across parchment. The man cranked out 47 novels, 42 short stories, and 18 works of non fiction.
And he didn’t do it from some ivory tower in a silk robe, either. He maintained this absolute manic, probably-insanity-inducing level of output while working as a full time, clock punching postman for the British postal service.
Trollope moonlighted but also hacked away at night…
Before he even punched into his day job, he would hole up at his desk and bleed out a strict, set number of pages. Then he’d go to work. He’d find himself trapped on lengthy, bone rattling train rides throughout Ireland and England, fulfilling his postal duties. And what did he do during those long, miserable commutes? He wrote more pages. He squeezed the stone until the blood came out.
The truly sick part? He actually adored being a postman. He loved it so much that he kept clocking in, kept sorting the mail, long after his novels were making enough money to keep him fat and happy.
When Trollope died and his autobiography finally dropped, it ruined him. Literary critics clutched their pearls because he revealed the truth.
His prolificness wasn’t some magical, God given lightning bolt of talent. It was just a regimented, cold blooded schedule. He showed them exactly how the sausage was made, and the readers hated it. They wanted to believe the writer was a God walking among men, effortlessly shitting golden prose.
While he was still kicking around, a neighbour wrote to him in a blind panic. Her husband had decided he wanted to try “writing for money,” and she wanted the legendary Trollope to hand over the secret sauce.
He told her that writing books was exactly like making shoes. The person who works the hardest, with the most honest, brutal purpose, makes the best shoes. He warned her that it was an uphill slog full of disappointment, more so than almost any other trade. He confessed he was at it for years, hacking away for ten entire volumes before he made a single shilling. He told her straight up…
…you have to learn the ugly tricks of the trade before you can squeeze a dime out of it.
His honesty offends us because it puts every single one of us squarely on the hook. If this Victorian mailman could churn out a small library while working a full time, demanding job, it means everyone. You, me, writers, code monkeys, everybody, is entirely capable of doing more with their lives and their work.
There is no methodology to the madness other than doing the actual, physical work. You either find the time to do the thing you love or you don’t. It’s that simple.
Stephen Walker.