Quantity Produces Quality

Madison Barry
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

I just scrolled past a quote in my Instagram feed from Ray Bradbury: “Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed.” And I said aloud, “Yep.”

I don’t know if this is a thing other authors do, but I often go back and reread my own work. In fact, I just finished a full read-through of the entire The House series, correcting typos and formatting as I went along. (No matter how many editing passes you do, and how many editing passes your editor does, you’re bound to miss something). I’ll be uploading the corrected manuscripts soon.

A bit of Maddie Barry trivia for you. Madison Barry is a pen name, if that wasn’t obvious. What you don’t know is where the name came from. Here’s the story (I promise this tangent is relevant):

I started my erotica-writing career writing short stories and publishing them on Literotica, a free site for writing and reading erotica.** I wrote a novella that I wanted to publish in pieces, but it turned out to be too dark even for them (and their community standards are pretty loose, so that’s saying something). Sometimes you just have something in your head you want to get out, even if it’s uncomfortable. I promise I’m not that depraved, really. But that’s not the point. The main character in that book was known only as Maddie; near the end, she finds out her full name is Madison Barry.

Anyway, even Literotica wouldn’t publish it, so I decided to try to use the basic outline of the story and rework it to be less dark and more palatable for a wider audience. That became Amy’s Year, and turned out completely different from what I was originally going for. It also turned out to be nearly 180,000 words, and I decided to publish it as a self-published ebook instead of in pieces on the free website. For that, I needed a pseudonym, and I decided to pay homage to the novella that started it all and use the name of the main character in that story as my pen name.

And then I just kept going.

That original novella is still sitting in my Google Docs, and the other day, I started reading it, just to see how I feel about it more than a year and a half later. I actually really like the story. It’s ultimately an escape story, and the bad guy gets it in the end. But it is pretty intense on the way there. The thing I noticed most, though, was how much better my writing has gotten. There are definitely pieces that are quite good, bits I can still be proud of, but if I were to write that story today, I would write it waaaay better.

Which got me thinking … Maybe I should rewrite it now, but soften it. Because, as I said, the basic story is actually kind of cool, and I think I could work with it.

All of this brings me back to my point at the beginning (see, I told you it was relevant). I’ve written fifteen books since January 2016. Amy’s Year was published May 31, 2016, and I’ve been writing basically nonstop since then. It was very discouraging at the beginning, seeing paltry sales and little engagement, and even 15 months later, I still despair of ever reaching even 1,000 people. I know in my niche genre, I’m not likely to be a household name, but it would be nice to be at least a little bit known.

But quantity makes a difference. I keep going, because the more I write, the better I get, and the more I have to offer. The more I publish, the more likely I am to be noticed.

If I’d quit after failing to publish that initial novella, there would be no Madison Barry.

That said, keep an eye out for my next novel!

**I still write and publish short stories on Literotica for free. You can read them at https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=3223042&page=submissions

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Madison Barry writes erotic novels and short stories with BDSM themes. You can support her by browsing her ever-growing collection of novels on Amazon, Smashwords, or your favorite ebook retailer. Subscribe to her Patreon for exclusive stories and photos.

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Madison Barry

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Author of BDSM-themed stories and books, explorer of the BDSM lifestyle, mother, business owner. www.madisonbarryauthor.com

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