As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve left my high tech job to pursue my dream of being published. That’s a lofty goal, but how does one achieve it? Well, being an engineer by training and aptitude, I’ve planned out a possible future, and am beginning my steps along it.

There are many ways to become a published author. Self-publishing is one path that many have taken. Traditional publishing is another. My personal preference is to start with traditional publishing. Not many self-published authors wind up with books on bookstore shelves, and that has been a driving image for me (possibly because my dream started nearly fifty years ago when I first discovered the magic of bookstores).

One of the major milestones I wish to make on my journey is to become a member of the trade organization for my preferred genre of science-fiction and fantasy, namely SFWA, The Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. When I first started looking into joining SFWA, the eligibility requirements were very specific: an author could apply for membership after having three short stories published in qualifying magazines or websites, or one novel published by a qualified publisher. A couple of years back, they changed the requirements to simply being paid a set amount across all of the various ways to get paid for writing fiction in the genre, but the original requirements are still a pretty good guideline to me.

Here is where my engineer mind kicks in. What is the most cost effective way to earn $1000 (the current threshold) by writing science fiction and fantasy? I believe it is to write short stories and submit them to the various paying markets. A short story is generally 2000 to 15000 words. My average tends to be just shy of 5000. A novel in the genre is typically 90000 to 120000 words (though epic fantasy often clocks in with much heftier word counts). In the time it takes to write a novel, one could presumably write 20 to 30 short stories, each one having a chance to be published.

Now, I’m fairly practiced at writing novels. I’ve been working on writing novels for years, and have several in various states of completion. Writing short stories uses many different skills than novels, and I’ve not developed those skills yet. But I imagine that the skills I need to develop for writing short pieces will in the long term benefit my long form writing, especially skills related to packing a lot of description in short sentences, and getting to the point quickly.

Another reason to focus on writing short fiction right now is that it would look good on my writing resume (or in my query letter to agents) to have a list of published works I can cite. Which is an agent going to take more seriously, a novel from someone who’s never been published, or a novel from someone who has a record of publications in various magazines? My money is on the latter.

In the final analysis, it seems much more beneficial to me at this state of my new career to focus on writing and publishing short stories. It will probably make me eligible to join my desired professional organization sooner, I’ll have more chances to get my writing in front of paying eyeballs, and it will help develop skills I can leverage in my novel writing. So, for the time being, my focus will be on writing short fiction.

With that in mind, I’m looking at some other statistics, namely statistics around my own performance. I find that when I’m focused, when I have the story clearly in mind, I can crank out 500 works in 30 minutes. I’m generally happy with that output as a first draft. In theory, if I were to be focused for my entire writing day, which I currently plan to be six hours per week day, I would be able to write 6000 words each day. I do not believe that rate is sustainable, but 2000 working words per day certainly seems to be. Given that, over the span of five working days, I should be able to brainstorm, develop, write, and edit a 3000-5000 word short story every week. I think this is doable. Will all of the stories be worthy of submission to magazines? I doubt it. But in 52 weeks, will some of them be? I’d like to think so.

So that is my plan. A short story a week every week. And when I can, a little more so I’ll have something to count as a completed story during those weeks I’m on vacation. The hardest part, naturally, will be coming up with enough ideas to support the plan.

Time to start brainstorming!