I took a prompt from the Revised edition of Judy Reeves’ awesome book “A Writer’s Book of Days” and set a time for 25 minutes. I went a few minutes past the end of the timer so let’s call it a 30 minute sprint. In that time I wrote more that 900 words. I surprised myself. It’s just a practice narrative, no real story, just stream of consciousness imagining an alien trying to pay a visit to Paris. I had no idea where to go with it but was beginning to head towards the alien being from a gastropodal species (wearing a human disguise) and sampling the tastes of Paris only to discover what escargot was made from. Hardly original but maybe could be fun? I’ll file it away for later cogitation, as I do with all my practice writing. Still, 900 words in 30 minutes is a damn good rate. I’m happy about that.
Category: Writing (Page 4 of 4)
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!
This evening I wrote my “farewell” email to my coworkers and colleagues at the place where I’ve worked the past sixteen years. At the end of this week, I will no longer be employed there. As of that point, I become a full-time writer.
As many who are raised in the American society do, I often feel defined by my employment. “Who am I? Oh, I’m a software QA engineer working for such-and-such company. And you?” As of Friday afternoon, I’ll no longer be employed. Or rather, I’ll be self-employed, a state I’ve never experienced before. To some degree, until I get paid for my writing (still waiting on a response to my first ever short story submission!), I’m not really “employed” as a writer, am I? I suppose I’ll be an unpaid intern till then.
The reason I’m making a distinction is because other people already have. When I’ve told people I’m a writer, the immediate question is “what have you published.” When I say “nothing yet,” the posture changes, the voice alters, and the obvious message, intended or not, is that one is not really a writer until they are published. Until one is making money from their profession, it doesn’t count I suppose.
So I’m transitioning from someone who is gainfully employed in a high tech career at a world-famous corporation to someone who by our society’s standards is simply not employed. And I’d be lying if I said there isn’t a part of me that is bothered by that change. Societal programming runs deeply in the psyche, and bucking the norms is something we’re all trained to avoid (not that the training is always effective). In a country that seems to venerate “rugged individualism”, striking out by one’s self to follow a dream without the safety of a paycheck often seems to be considered an aberration. I’m still working through how that feels in my own head and my own experience.
Still, I’m excited by the upcoming transition. It literally has been a dream since childhood. I’ve been writing on an off since well before high school. (And the less said about the cringy fan-fiction of mine that my High School’s “literary magazine” published the better.) I’ve been practicing my craft for decades. It’s time to see if I can make something real and lasting of it.
I’ve always enjoyed reading self-help books on the craft of writing. From Stephen King’s “On Writing” to Ursula Le Guinn’s “Conversations on Writing” to David Gerrold’s “Worlds of Wonder”, all have inspired me in different ways, and gave me plenty to think about as I sit down to work on my own craft.
But lately I’ve notice an interesting trend. As I scan Amazon and Apple Bookstore for new interesting reads in this particular field, I find plenty of books that seem interesting and get fairly decent reviews. But if I go and try to find books or short stories published by the authors of these “how to write” books, it’s amazing how few books I tend to find.
One popular Mystery writer’s YouTube channel is full of authoritative advice on how to plot your murder mystery novel, how to use cliches in new and interesting ways, how to hide your killer’s motives so that they result in a satisfying ending, and so on and so forth. She’s published exactly one novel so far, and is working on a “how to” book based on her YouTube videos. Now, she has a LOT of interesting things to say, and I find her insights useful. Every minute spent watching her videos has been a smart investment in my own craft. But still, only one novel (and no short stories that I could find).
In another case, I found someone who is selling probably a dozen or so short books on various aspects of the craft of writing short stories and other fiction. Each is $2.99. Many of them get great reviews. As far as I can tell, she has no fiction sold under the name she uses to write these books. It seems strange to me not to bank on your own name if you’re successfully selling fiction.
Maybe all of these authors are actually publishing under different names, and thus actually do have the experience to tell prospective writers the right way to go about crafting and marketing their own work. I don’t know, I didn’t dig deeply into the authors I found. And of course, if the advice resonates, it’s undoubtedly useful to one degree or another.
It just looks strange to me when someone is publishing a fiction writing self-help book with so little apparent experience in actually writing fiction.
I’m finding myself diving deeply into my characters’ backstories as I do the prep work for the novel I’m planning. For my typical action-oriented stories of novels past, a page or two of notes has usually been sufficient (or so I’ve thought). Since this novel’s main story is heavily influenced by romance novel tropes and structure, I figured I needed to know more about each of my three main characters, the two love birds and the evil person determined to obliterate a star system. (Oh, it’s primarily conceived as a space opera, in case that wasn’t clear before now.) Each of the two protagonists have elicited 5000 and more words of backstory and personality notes, and the villain is threatening to exceed that amount. The further I go, the more I have “aha!” moments about them, and the more complex they get. (For example, during today’s writing I “discovered” that the name of one of my protagonists is an assumed name, something I had never considered before, but which gives him additional depth and secrets to protect.) I usually am too eager to start writing the novel but find myself having large gaps in my novel outline, especially in the “muddy middle.” “Something happens here!” But as I add depth to my characters, certain scenes suddenly demand to be added to my outline. I’m totally fascinated by this.
I’ve decided to start a creativity journal, and intend to spend at least a few minutes each day brainstorming ideas for stories, novels, and TTRPG stuff. I’ve been experiencing doldrums in idea generation lately; I’m hoping regular practice will help. Originally I was going to go to my local office supply place and find something to write in (shop pies!), but realized I already had a perfectly sized journaling book that was a “reward” for completing a month-long mindfulness challenge at work. And I have a good-sized collection of fountain pens and inks with which to do my journaling. Now to find a way to keep myself accountable…
Recent Comments