40 Books In: What I Wish I Knew at the Start

March 28, 2024 | 6 min read

 

Jayce Carter has written more than 40 books and grown a ravenous reader base for her paranormal romance novels.

If the phrase "40 books" leaves you slack-jawed and speechless, you're not alone.

Jayce drafts her work on Freewrite for the ultimate distraction-free writing experience, but what else does she do to keep churning out fantastic fiction? Let's find out. 

 

Let's start with: 40 books. Wow. How in the world did you do it?

I once had a mentor who told me to write 1,000 words every day. He even did this through the birth of children, through marriage and divorce and illness, never missing a day. I can’t claim to be that devoted — I have missed days, after all — but that mindset has really helped me to write daily.

I’ve found the more it becomes routine, the less I have to rely on motivation or self-discipline. Even if I only write a handful of words, writing anything helps to keep that momentum going.

 

What does your writing routine look like?

Writing is my full-time job, which means I typically work for eight hours a day, five days a week. I don’t spend that full amount of time only drafting, of course, and split it between writing, editing, and administrative work.

I prefer to get my writing done early in the morning, and usually start my day around 5 a.m. — before the kids wake up and decide they need stuff! I save administrative work — marketing, contracts, promos, stuff like that — for later in the day.

My daily word count can be anywhere between 500 and 10,000, but I usually strive for around 5,000 on a good writing day.

Romance readers are notoriously voracious. One stat we've seen is that 78% of romance readers read more than one novel per month, which is way higher than the average. Do you feel pressure to write fast to keep up?

The voracious appetite of romance readers is one of the reasons the genre fits me so well. I draft my stories quickly. This works out perfectly, because if I were in a different genre, I fear reader fatigue would set in.

But no matter how quickly I release books, there will always be a reader asking me when the next is coming. I won’t deny that this can cause a bit of pressure, but I find that motivating rather than stifling. I’m a person who does well with deadlines and pressure. I was that kid who never read a thing in school until five minutes before the test when I frantically thumbed through the pages of the text only to land a good grade somehow.

That sort of pressure helps me to work, honestly, and I appreciate how amazingly obsessive and kind my readers always are.

 

Name 3 concrete techniques you use to write fast. 

1) I love to write in the early morning hours. This is before all the other nonsense of life can get in the way.

2) I'm a huge fan of tracking word counts. I use a bullet journal, and in it I have a full yearly spread so I can track my exact word count on every day. This really helps to keep me motivated to continue writing, since I know I’ll have to look at that number for the rest of the year!

3) I also use word sprints — writing as quickly as I can for a set period of time, and often with other people to hold me accountable.

  

Which Freewrite do you use? 

Is this where I have to out myself? I actually own all three main Freewrite models.

I have my original — named Bob — who has fancy black key caps. I bought him when they first came out. I love him for the back light and he works best at a desk, but I’ve sure hauled him out on the town a time or two.

I bought Traveler when it first came out — named Travis — and have taken him on two cross-country road trips. He is fantastic for the small size and mobility, which is why he always comes on trips with me! I’ve written so many words in hotel rooms or in the back of a car as we drive.

Lastly, my Alpha — aptly named Adam — is my newest writing buddy. I use him the most, now, and keep him by my bed so I can write a bit in the evening while watching trash TV. Adam never judges me.

 

Our CEO's name is Adam. He's going to love this. Which is your favorite?

I can’t say because, to me, they all have very specific uses and I’m glad I have all of them for different reasons.

That's a cop out, but we'll take it.

 

 

Let's talk about your writing routine over the course of 40 books. Has anything changed? 

There is so much! I started out as a stay-at-home mom who wrote by setting my Freewrite on top of my washing machine in the kitchen as I took care of my kids. I would jot down a few hundred words sitting in the car while I waited for my kids during school pick-up.

Now, however, I have my own office — a desk is much nicer than a washing machine, as it turns out. My kids are going into high school, which means I get to focus for hours a day on my work in a way that wasn’t possible before.

Having that extra time to focus is nice, of course, but the truth is that I sometimes miss the chaos of before.

Writing that first book is special. Everyone is a bit naïve about how it will go, and I miss that feeling of magic, that enthusiasm at having done something so amazing. By book 40, I’m still proud, of course, but it doesn’t sparkle quite like it did at first.

 

What is the biggest thing you wish you had known while writing book 1 that you know now?

I wish I’d trusted myself more. I spent a lot of years afraid to go for it.

I told myself I needed to learn more, to grow more as a writer, convinced I would reach some point where I was "ready" for it.

Instead, looking back, I realize it was just fear that kept me stagnant. I’d been afraid of hearing "no" from publishers, of failing something that meant so much to me, so I’d just kept practicing, telling myself it was for the best. It felt safer to never try than to risk trying and falling flat on my face.

 

 

What’s your #1 piece of advice for writers looking to be more prolific?

I have two.

1) Set reasonable goals! Too often I see people who aren’t writing at all deciding they’ll write 5,000 words a day, seven days a week. They ignore the realities of their lives, though, and set themselves up for failure. Instead of feeling motivated and proud by what they accomplish, they end up demoralized and defeated from day one when they inevitably can’t meet the unreasonable goal they set.

I’ve found setting lower goals to always be better. If I tell myself I’ll write 100 words, I nearly always write more. The pressure feels less imposing and I get that hit of dopamine from succeeding each time.

So make sure to set goals you can actually achieve and know that you can always set higher goals once it becomes routine!

2) Along that same idea, don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m one of those weird people who love Mondays, but do you know why? Because Monday is the start of a new week. No matter what last week was like, no matter how much or how little I got done, Monday offers me a fresh start. I can decide how thisweek will go.

There are weeks where I don’t get done what I want, where my kids are … well, teenagers, where I end up sick, where nothing goes right and I feel bad about it all. It’s so easy to let that get to us, to think one week defines us, but it doesn’t. We can always start again.

So every Monday I start over. I stop blaming myself for the week before, I stop feeling bad about it, and I just move forward with my plans for thisweek. I think people would be better off if we were all a little kinder to ourselves and saw Mondays as the fresh starts that we deserve!

 

--

 

Jayce Carter lives and writes in the desert of Southern California with her husband and two teenage spawns. She started writing flash fiction and literary pieces but grew to feel there wasn't nearly enough filth on the market. Her mother always told her to be the change she wanted to see in the world … advice her mother now regrets.

Jayce writes spicy reverse-harem stories with female characters who have to learn their own power and take control of their own lives. She prefers paranormal stories for all the other girls who were disappointed when the beast turned into a boring human.

Learn more about Jayce at jaycecarter.com or follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

 

Recommended articles

More recommended articles for you

March 22, 2025 4 min read

I’ve spent years writing while secretly fearing that a single misplaced word would expose me — not just as a bad writer, but as a fraud.

My background is originally in photography, and I see it there, too. A photographer I know recently posted a before-and-after comparison of their editing from 2018 versus now, asking if we also saw changes in our own work over the years.

Naturally, we should. If our work is the same, years apart, have we really grown as artists?

So why is that the growing, the process of it, the daily grind of it, is so painful?

So why is that the growing, the process of it, the daily grind of it, is so painful?

The Haunting

Hitting “publish” on an essay or a blog always stirs up insecurity — the overthinking, the over-editing. The fear that someone will call me out for not being a real writer.

I initially hesitated to make writing part of my freelance work. My background is in photography and design. Writing was something I gravitated toward, but I had no degree to validate it. No official stamp of approval.

Like many writers, I started with zero confidence in my voice — agonizing over edits, drowning in research, second-guessing every word.

I even created a shield for myself: ghostwriting.

I even created a shield for myself: ghostwriting.

If my words weren’t my own, they couldn’t be wrong. Ghostwriting meant safety — no risk, no vulnerability, just words without ownership.

I still remember the feeling of scrolling to the bottom of an article I had written and seeing someone else’s name, their face beside words that had once been mine.

The truth is, I always wanted to write. As a kid, I imagined it. Yet, I found myself handing over my work, letting someone else own it.

I told myself it didn’t matter. It was work. Getting paid to write should be enough.

But here’s the thing: I wasn’t just playing it safe — I was slowly erasing myself. Word by word. Edit by edit. And finally, in the by-line.

I wasn’t just playing it safe — I was slowly erasing myself. Word by word. Edit by edit. And finally, in the by-line.

The Disappearing Act

This was true when I was writing under my own name, too. The more I worried about getting it right, the less I sounded like me.

I worried. I worried about how long an essay was (“people will be bored”), finding endless examples as proof of my research (“no way my own opinion is valid on its own”), the title I gave a piece (“it has to be a hook”), or editing out personal touches (“better to be safe than be seen”).

I built a guardrail around my writing, adjusting, tweaking, over-correcting. Advice meant to help only locked me in. It created a sentence rewritten to sound smarter, an opinion softened to sound safer, a paragraph reshaped to sound acceptable.

I built a guardrail around my writing, adjusting, tweaking, over-correcting.

But playing it safe makes the work dull. Writing loses its edge.

It took deliberate effort to break this habit. I’m not perfect, but here’s what I know after a year of intentionally letting my writing sound like me:

My work is clearer. It moves with my own rhythm. It’s less shaped by external influence, by fear, by the constant need to smooth it into something more polished, more likable.

But playing it safe makes the work dull. Writing loses its edge.

The Resurrection

The drive for acceptance is a slippery slope — one we don’t always realize we’re sliding down. It’s present in the small choices that pull us away from artistic integrity: checking how others did it first, tweaking our work to fit a mold, hesitating before saying what we actually mean.

And let’s be honest — this isn’t just about writing. It bleeds into everything.

It’s there when we stay silent in the face of wrongdoing, when we hold back our true way of being, when we choose work that feels “respectable,” whatever that means. It’s in every “yes” we say when we really want to say “no.”

If your self-expression is rooted in a need for acceptance, are you creating for yourself — or for others? Does your work help you explore your thoughts, your life? Does it add depth, energy, and meaning?

My work is clearer. It moves with my own rhythm. It’s less shaped by external influence, by fear, by the constant need to smooth it into something more polished, more likable.

I get it. We’re social creatures. Isolation isn’t the answer. Ignoring societal norms won’t make us better writers. Often, the most meaningful work is born from responding to or resisting those norms.

But knowing yourself well enough to recognize when acceptance is shaping your work brings clarity.

Am I doing this to be part of a community, to build connections, to learn and grow?

Or am I doing this to meet someone else’s expectations, dulling my voice just to fit in?

The Revival

Here’s what I know as I look back at my writing: I’m grateful for the years spent learning, for the times I sought acceptance with curiosity. But I’m in a different phase now.

I know who I am, and those who connect with my work reflect that back at me — in the messages they send, in the conversations we share.

I know who I am, and those who connect with my work reflect that back at me — in the messages they send, in the conversations we share.

It’s our differences that drive growth. I want to nurture these connections, to be challenged by difference, to keep writing in a way that feels like me. The me who isn’t afraid to show what I think and care about.

So, I ask you, as I ask myself now:

If no one was watching, if no one could judge, what would you write?

If no one was watching, if no one could judge, what would you write?

March 20, 2025 6 min read

A book deal without an agent? An agent offer after a book deal? Learn how Writer Bobby Miller took his publishing journey into his own hands. 

March 19, 2025 1 min read

We've chatted with the creatures of Middle Earth to discover their writing preferences and which Freewrite devices work best for each of them.

Find your Lord of the Rings identity and discover your next Freewrite.