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The distance between ambition and reality can be elusive, just like the last mile on a long road trip. For prose author Joe Hill, as he celebrates his 18th year as a published, uber-successful novelist, is to become prodigiously faster. Not by writing quicker per se, but by focusing more.

In his latest newsletter from his keyboard to my inbox (and yours too, if you have it in you), the Horns author is opening up about his goal to become what's known in his line of work as a "book-a-year writer."

"As I’ve said in other newsletters, I decided at some point that I wanted to try my hand at being a book-a-year writer," writes Hill. "And as I’ve gone along, I’ve come to believe that’s something I can probably do—but a lot of pulling it off is about recognizing that I only have time to do the things I need to do, not the things I might wish I could do."

As Hill has said, he's had this daydream for a while and has been chipping away at the obstructions to that goal - and has found it's things like this very newsletter I'm telling you about, as well other non-novel writing he does.

"I can live my daydream of being a book-a-year guy, but only if I set aside some other daydreams. I can work on the novel today, or I can write a fun little essay for my newsletter, but I can’t do both," says Hill. "I can preserve my PWGA health care by writing a screenplay a year, but that means accepting I can’t also do an ongoing comic."

Hill is even thinking about rationing his time spent reading - but as a dutiful father he is, even he has limits.

"If I’m going to read to my twins in the evening, I’m going to have to give up some of the time I might’ve spent reading to myself," says Hill. "These are trade-offs I don’t just accept; I feel good about them, grateful that I’m in a position to make those kinds of choices at all."

Now, Joe Hill grew up in a household where his dutiful father was the epitome of a "book-a-year writer", averaging a new book every nine months. For Hill, who turns 53 in just a few days and has a new novel arriving on bookshelves (and my bookshelf) imminently called King Sorrow along with a sequel to the short-story-turned-hit-movie Black Phone later this year, he's begun to embrace the chase.

"A day is short, a week is a vanishingly small period of time and—what’s the old saying? It’s always later than you think," says Hill. "Even when I’m sitting still at my desk, I’m in a desperate footrace against the clock to get in one more paragraph, one more line. It may look like not much is happening, but really I’m sprinting madly for my life."

Just like yourself, the Popverse staff spends a whole lot of time with our respective noses in respective books. It's why we've come up with stuff like:

• The hottest upcoming fiction
• Queer romance to add to your reading list
• A reading guide to Cassandar Clare's Shadowhunter Chronicles

...and a whole lot more. Join our metaphorical library, won't you? There are no late fees and you can be as loud as you want, so long as the people you live with are OK with it.