Doing What You Love: Practical inspiration for writers

doingwhatyoulovecover-medium Doing What You Love: Practical Strategies for Living a Creative Life is now out in paperback! This chapbook draws on my quarter-century of writing experience to share insights and inspiration previously only available by attending one of my talks or, more recently, downloading an ebook. It makes a great gift for any writer in your life who could use a bit of a pep talk. (Including you!) ['Taking risks, rather than being an impractical and foolhardy act, might be  one of the most practical and business-savvy things we can do.'] Available wherever books are sold: – Amazon (bundle with the ebook for 99 cents more) – IndieBoundBarnes & Noble Or visit your favorite local bookstore and ask them to order you a copy!

A Creative Conversation about Career Cycles

I had an amazing Creative Conversation with Janet Lee Carey about Career Cycles this week, where we talked about many of the things we often hesitate to discuss as writers:
At some point, it also hit me that there were no guarantees as a writer and that success wasn’t as simple as just being intense enough or doing any other one right thing. Anything I wrote could ultimately sell or not sell, find its audience or not find it. I had less control than I’d thought—and that was oddly freeing. If there were no guarantees anyway, I realized I might as well just write what I loved.
And:
Support, just knowing we’re not alone with the ups and downs, that we’re not the only ones to invent and reinvent ourselves, is huge. We’re so afraid of admitting to struggles, of being seen as less than perfect. Again, it’s like if others detect weakness, they’ll realize we don’t belong, and somehow magically kick us out of this writing world. But no one can make us stop writing, and no one person controls the whole writing-verse anyway. It doesn’t work that way.
There’s a lot more–check out the conversation here! (And, along the way, enter to win a copy of the Bones of Faerie trilogy.)
Want to talk about writing in person? I’ll be at the Pima County Public Library’s Megamania event Saturday, July 9.
Kidlit for Kidlits panel With Aprilynne Pike, Adam Rex, and Janni Lee Simner When: Saturday, July 9, 3:45-4:45 p.m. Where: Pima Community College Downtown Campus, 1255 North Stone Avenue Tucson, Arizona
Megamania is essentially a mini-comicon run by the library. The full event runs from 1-6 p.m. and is completely free

Intensity, burnout, and regrouping

Jaye Wells and Tiffany Trent both have posts up this week about writers and burnout. (I totally agree with Jaye Wells on the importance of writers having hobbies, once writing ceases to be one. Writing professionally is one of the things that led me to become a serial hobbyist.) This got me to thinking about one of the cycles I’ve noticed in writing careers, one that we don’t talk much about–the cycle of intensity and burnout. I’ve come to believe, watching countless writers go through this–and having gone through it myself–that writers often spend the first three or four years of their careers talking about how important it is to be intense and productive, sharing strategies for getting more done and being more efficient, talking about how a professional writer has no choice but to write two, three, four books a year. Somewhere in the middle of the first decade, though, many writers go quiet–until somewhere around years six to nine writers often admit they’ve been coping with burnout, possibly alongside other career challenges, and they share those struggles. I think it’s hugely useful to do so. It’s all that sharing through the years that’s made me realize how common this is. The first few years of the first decade of a writing career are often about intensity. The last few years of that decade are often about dealing with burnout in various ways. In between, writers often struggle with either despair or denial, as they realize this writing career thing is a less simple (even less simple) than it first seemed. Sometime after the first decade, a sort of settling in and settling down happens. An acceptance of both the ongoing cycles and the shifting ground of a writing career. A developing of personal coping strategies for doing this for the long haul. Well, either that, or the writer stops writing. I don’t mean that lightly–moving on to do something else is a reasonable response to burnout, too. But one way or another, by roughly the end of the first decade, something often has to give, and something often has to change. That early intensity often can’t be maintained forever, not without, at the very least, allowing for downtime, as well as allowing for the unpredictability of a writing career. I’ve used the word often a lot, above. Careers vary so much that none of this is going to be true for everyone. But if this isn’t the only possible cycle for a writing career to follow, it is a common one. And I think that’s worth talking about, so that those who do go through this cycle know they’re not alone with it. Intensity, burnout, regrouping. Sometimes the cycle repeats after that. Sometimes the strategies developed keep it from repeating. That varies too. Intensity, burnout, regrouping. If you’re somewhere in the middle of this cycle, you’re not alone. You’re just navigating a perfectly normal writing career.

April Henry on Rejection, Dry Spells, and Tenacity (Writing for the Long Haul Series)

New York Times bestselling author April Henry started writing in 1989 and published her first book a decade later. She joins the long haul series today to talk about rejection, career hard patches, and the one thing she believes long-haul writers need more than anything else: the tenacity to never stop writing.
Do you want to be a writer for the long haul? I think the key is tenacity. Tenacity is at least as important as talent. In 1989, I had a dream: to write a book. I didn’t know a single writer. Two years later, I had a finished book and a new dream: that it would be published and I could quit my day job. Instead, I got a ton of rejection letters from agents. Was my career over before it had even begun? I wrote a second book and sent it out to agents. Agent after agent rejected it. Finally, an agent told me the book was one of the best she had ever seen. It was so good, she said, that she was sure I hadn’t shown it to any other agents. I did not tell her that over 50 agents had already rejected it. A year later, it was clear my second book would never sell, despite complimentary rejection letters from editors. So I wrote a third book. Which got nothing but ho-hum rejections. I could have given up, but instead I had been keeping busy writing a fourth book. Circles of Confusion sold to the first editor who saw it. The advance was certainly not “quit your job” money. We bought some new furniture. But at least I was a real writer, right? I thought the hard part was over. I didn’t realize that just because you have been published once, it doesn’t mean you will be published again. Circles of Confusion got nominated for several awards and got good reviews. I wrote a second in the series and then a third. I was on a publisher-paid tour for the third book when I learned they were dropping me because the sales of my second book hadn’t been double that of my first (an idea they hadn’t shared with me, although I’m not sure what I could have done about it if I had known). Would I ever be published again? My heroic agent managed to move the series over to a different publisher for less money. I put out two books with them. The new publisher put very little effort into promoting them. One did great. The other not so great. We came to a mutual parting of ways. Somewhere in here I wrote a few books that didn’t sell. One was on the chick lit side, the other really didn’t fit into a category. In 2004, not only did I not seem anywhere close to quitting my day job, but my day job was starting to suck. I worried that I would never be published again. But that did not stop me from writing a new book, one with a 16-year-old main character. It was a YA according to my agent. (I had just thought of it as an adult book with a young main character.) After that first YA, Shock Point, came out, I hit another hard patch. I had written another YA, but the release date kept getting pushed back and my editor had pretty much stopped answering my emails. Not only had my dream of quitting my day job faded, but my job had actually gotten worse. There were frequent “emergency” meetings in which I would realize one or two co-workers were missing. Then the meeting would turn out to be about how they had just been let go. It felt like everything was falling apart. But I didn’t stop writing. I finished writing a YA book I really liked, about a blind girl who is accidentally kidnapped when someone steals her step-mom’s car—with her in it. My editor didn’t like it, saying that books about kidnapping were overdone. In late 2007, I got approached about partnering with a TV legal analyst on an adult mystery series. When we made a four-book deal, I knew I would never again have such a biggish chunk of money at one time. So I quit my day job in 2008. It was the scariest thing I have ever done. A few months later, I sold the book about the blind girl—Girl, Stolen—to a new editor, Christy Ottaviano at Henry Holt. In 2009, that first adult coauthored book, Face of Betrayal, hit the New York Times bestseller list. And I learned that Girl, Stolen would be a lead title for Holt the next year. Girl, Stolen, which was originally turned down by my first editor, has since been on nine state lists, named a Quick Pick, and is on the recommended curriculum in Ireland. From 2010 on, I have published two books a year, one adult and one YA. And I’ve managed to continue to make a living as a writer. I think the key has been being tenacious. Even if—and it’s probably when—I hit another dry patch, I will keep writing, keep trying.
April Henry knows how to kill you in a two-dozen different ways. She makes up for a peaceful childhood in an intact home by killing off fictional characters. April had one detour on her path to destruction: when she was 12 she sent a short story about a six-foot tall frog who loved peanut butter to noted children’s author Roald Dahl. He liked it so much he arranged to have it published in an international children’s magazine. By the time she was in her 30s, April had come to terms with her childhood and started writing about hit men, drug dealers, and serial killers. Look for two new books from her in 2015: Lethal Beauty (written with Lis Wiehl) and Blood Will Tell.
Previous Writing for the Long Haul PostsKelly Bennett on Quitting WritingPete Hautman on the book that will save usElena Acoba on touching reader livesSteve Miller on building a writing lifeSharon Lee on remembering we’re not aloneBetty G. Birney on always challenging ourselvesNora Raleigh Baskin on making deals with the writing godsSean Williams on unpredictability and luckDeborah J. Ross on writing through crisisSharon Shinn on managing timeMarge Pellegrino on feeding the restless yearning to writeSarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passionsUma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberanceJennifer J. Stewart on finding community and supportSherwood Smith on keeping inspiration aliveMette Ivie Harrison on defining successJeffrey J. Mariotte on why we writeJudith Tarr on reinventing ourselvesKathi Appelt on the power of storyCynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity

Kelly Bennett on Quitting Writing (Writing for the Long Haul series)

Children’s book veteran Kelly Bennett has been publishing picture books and children’s nonfiction for a quarter century. She joins the long haul series today to discuss something many writers think about: when (and how) to quit–and when (and why) not to.
bennett_vampireReTIRED and Better for It! I’m honored Janni invited me to discuss Writing for the Long Haul. It’s an interesting topic, especially as I recently quit. Someone asked me once. “What made you think anyone would want to read what you write?” Snarky as the question sounds, it wasn’t intended to be an insult. It was posed as a query, more of a “Why did you become a writer?” The idea that I could . . . should . . . must be a WRITER struck me like a tractor trailer on an empty New Mexico highway. I was driving Route 66 from California back to Oklahoma, in a metallic green Cadillac with my two children—then 2 and 4—when it smacked me upside the head. (We were listening to kiddie music on an 8 track.) Unlike many authors I know, I had never before considered becoming a writer. While I had earned high marks on school writing assignments, I was not a writer. I didn’t even keep grocery lists, let alone a journal. Nevertheless, I answered the call. At the first opportunity, I enrolled in a writing class. Along with introducing me to the business of publishing, that first class also brought me together with Ronnie Davidson, a kindred spirit who soon became my writing partner. Within that first year we’d sold our first book. However, as our co-writing career took off, my personal life crashed.  Frankly, as passionate as I was about writing, if it had not been for Ronnie, and the support and accountability that comes from being part of a team, I probably would have quit. By writing team, I mean Ronnie and I sat side-by-side every school day for as many hours as our schedules allowed, with Ronnie at the computer keyboard (one of the earliest home systems) and me scribbling on a legal pad, bouncing ideas, plotting, creating, and finishing each other’s sentences . . .  As a team we set goals—primarily to publish—and set our course of action. What we wrote—poems, puzzles, How-To, Travel, parenting magazine and newspaper articles, memoir, True Confessions, fiction, non-fiction—didn’t matter. The fun was writing and publishing, and being paid (no matter how small the check; every dollar was one less I had to make waitressing.) Being part of a writing team came naturally to me. As a kid, I preferred team sports—volleyball, kick ball, badminton—over individual sports. Even in Tennis, I preferred doubles.  So, when after more than 12 years, 6 books and a binder-full of articles to our credit, we dissolved our writing partnership, I floundered. For the first time, I questioned the call. Was I really meant to be a writer? Or, was I only a writing partner? Could I even write by myself? Did I want to? Fast forwarding through the ensuing agonizing self-appraisal, I determined, partner or not, I was a writer. I plunged into a new writing life. Partly out of fear, partly loneliness, this included becoming active in writing organizations I had only been vaguely connected to while team writing, including a critique group. Through them I found the supportive community I craved and began realizing success in my solo career. Odd as it sounds, publishing can wreak havoc on our writing lives. It did mine.  Having a “career” requires us to split ourselves in two: part creative writer, part business-minded author. Whether it’s true, or it’s just my excuse, the last few years I’ve been so busy moving, marrying off children, caring for aging parents, traveling, etc. etc., I haven’t had much time for anything else. Of necessity, what time I did have went to “must dos” and “should dos”—promotions &; marketing, presentations, social media—author stuff. As a result, the “want tos”—everything I enjoyed about writing, including writing and fellowship—went by the wayside.  I came to one day and realized my writing life was no longer a joy. It was a job. And, judging by my actions—splitting with my agent, neglecting revisions, not sitting my butt in the chair—a job I might not want. I was wallowing somewhere between miserable and pathetic when it dawned on me that, called or not, I did not have to be a writer. There were a zillion other careers out there, a zillion other things I could be doing besides writing. So I quit. Being free from the publish-and-promote-or-perish pressure felt grrrrrreat! . . . Honest. While on hiatus, I attended a retirement dinner for a colleague of my husband’s. After the dinner was over one of the young, non-native English speaking attendees approached him. “Mr. Michael,” he said. “After you get your new tires, what will you do?” New tires! We all enjoyed his naiveté, and some among us filled him in on the “real” meaning of retirement. (Although I’m not sure we should have.) In a Chauncy Gardnerish way, he was correct. In retiring, Michael was replacing a worn set of work tires with a comfy new set for rolling into the sunset. Yes, retirement is an end. But it’s also an opportunity for new beginnings. I didn’t want to quit. Writing is my chess, my Suduko, my Candy Crush.  Even when the writing isn’t going well, I’m happier writing than not writing. I had been called to writing. And not heeding that call was driving me from crazy to cranky. I wanted to retire so I could begin a new, fulfilling writing life. Just as there are different kinds of tires—on road, off road, snow, etc.—there are different ways to approach our writing lives.  After deciding that I wanted—want—to be a writer, I visualized what I wanted that new writing life to be. Next, I set goals to ensure I don’t forget or ignore my “want tos” again! These include:
  1. Staying connected to my team by attending one writing retreat, workshop or conference (as a participant, not a speaker) bi-annually chosen to inspire and energize me.
  2. Interacting with my readers regularly (preschoolers and elementary students) at paid events, and as a volunteer.
  3. Challenging myself to try new things (by taking classes and group study).
  4. Scheduling quarterly check-ups to evaluate my professional life with an eye to maintaining balance between author duties and writing—with prime time going to writing.
Writing for the long haul is no different than other professions, harder perhaps considering the paychecks may not be as plump or regular. It’s easy to stay busy attending to the “must dos” and the “should dos” while ignoring the “want tos.” But, attending to those “want tos” is what brings us joy.  And while I don’t recommend doing anything as dramatic as calling it quits, I do suggest doing what I should have:  in the same way you take your car in for servicing, schedule regular career check-ups.  Ask and answer those defining questions:
  • Why did you become a writer?
  • What kind of writing life do you want?
Depending on your responses, make necessary adjustments to your writing life. Could be it’s time for you to re-tire, too. Oh, the places we can go on a brand new set of tires!
Kelly Bennett started telling stories when she was two, using her mother’s mascara to write on her neighbor’s car. She’s gone on to publish more than a dozen picture books and nonfiction children’s books under her name, as well as several books co-authored with Ronnie Davidson under the pen name Jill Max. Her most recent titles include Vampire Baby, the Writer’s League of Texas Book Award Winner One Day I Went Rambling, Your Mommy Was Just Like You, and Your Daddy Was Just Like You. She’s a graduate of the Vermont College Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults program. Visit her online at Kelly’s Fishbowl.
Previous Writing for the Long Haul PostsPete Hautman on the book that will save usElena Acoba on touching reader livesSteve Miller on building a writing lifeSharon Lee on remembering we’re not aloneBetty G. Birney on always challenging ourselvesNora Raleigh Baskin on making deals with the writing godsSean Williams on unpredictability and luckDeborah J. Ross on writing through crisisSharon Shinn on managing timeMarge Pellegrino on feeding the restless yearning to writeSarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passionsUma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberanceJennifer J. Stewart on finding community and supportSherwood Smith on keeping inspiration aliveMette Ivie Harrison on defining successJeffrey J. Mariotte on why we writeJudith Tarr on reinventing ourselvesKathi Appelt on the power of storyCynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity

Unknown first novels and the myth of the big debut

I was recently talking to a new writer in that scary, hopeful place of awaiting publication of their first book, and at some point in our conversation, they said to me: “If you look at careers that crash and burn you can often trace it to a first book that failed to do well.” And I was all, what? Umm, no. Never mind the absolutism of “crash and burn” as the opposite of runaway success–I know at least as many prominent working writers whose first book wasn’t noticed much at all when it came out, maybe isn’t known even now. I mean, how many urban fantasy fans have heard of Nightseer? How many lovers of children’s books know Kenny’s Window? How many epic fantasy readers have read Dying of the Light? And how many of those of you who do know these books discovered them before you discovered these writers’ better known works and went looking to see what else they’d done? Yet the myth of big-debut-or-nothing remains, and has grown alongside an increasing emphasis on first novels that can easily become one more tool writers at all stages of their careers use to beat themselves up with. So in the interest of providing a little balance, I’ve decided we need a list of little-known first works by now-bestselling and award-winning writers. Because it’s lovely when your first book comes out to great fanfare, but it’s not some sort of automatic death knell when it doesn’t. Here’s the start of that my list. This is just a starting point, so I hope you’ll help me expand it by mentioning other first books by now-bestselling or award-winning writers either in comments here or under the hashtag #unknownfirsts on twitter. The Big U, Neal Stephenson Burgoo Stew, Susan Patron Conan the Invincible, Robert Jordan (who also wrote The Fallon Blood a couple years earlier under a pseud) Duran Duran: The First Four Years, Neil Gaiman Dying of the Light, George R. R. Martin Fire Proof (The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo #11), Suzanne Collins First Light, Rebecca Stead The Foolish Giant, Bruce Coville The Gremlins, Roald Dahl Just Morgan, Susan Beth Pfeffer Kenny’s Window, Maurice Sendak (his work as an illustrator goes back further) The Lightning Time, Gregory Maguire Nightseer, Laurell K. Hamilton Outlaws of Sherwood Forest (Choose Your Own Adventure #47), Ellen Kushner Pilgrims and Other Stories, Elizabeth Gilbert Pirates in Petticoats, Jane Yolen Restoree, Anne McCaffrey The Small Rain, Madeleine L’Engle There are many, many ways to build a career, and having a bestseller or award-winner right out of the gate is only one of them. There’s also the fact that one can have a viable career without ever publishing a high-profile book, not to mention the whole business how careers aren’t things that are unequivocally made and just as unequivocally kept in the first place–but that second, I think, is a whole other discussion. (If you need reminders that it’s true, though, the ongoing Writing for the Long Haul series is a good place to start.)

Steve Miller on Building a Writing Life (Writing for the Long Haul series)

Steve Miller sold his first story in the 1970s and, with his wife and collaborator Sharon Lee, has been building a career around words ever since. Today he joins the long haul series to talk about the many threads that can go into a writing life and about centering that life around the work we most want to do.
To make a long story short, I’m a professional writer. I’m in this for the long haul. I’ve always intended to be a professional writer, that is, once I got over my childhood ambition to make a living as a chauffeur polishing and driving fancy Cadillacs. In high school I bought writing magazines and my grandmother sent me books on writing – including a fateful Writer’s Market, full of dozens, nay, hundreds, nay, thousands of places willing to pay me to write, if only I wrote what they wanted. I started out as a poet; my first few publications were poetry and for some time I made a semi-life by writing poetry, doing coffee houses, guesting at parties as a poet, and covering (as a substitute teacher) the dreaded “poetry sections” for beaten-down English teachers. I made very little money from the writing (you’ve got to sell a lot of poems at $3 or $5 each to cover the rent!) and I made not much more as a substitute, and eventually I put the poetry aside. But wait. There’s another thread. You see, in college I wrote for the college paper – a paying gig! – starting off as Chess Reporter and moving rapidly into a News Editor slot. I made decent money in that part-time job, learned a lot, and started writing reviews of books and movies and reporting. I made more money as a reporter and editor than I did as a poet, yessir! Just before I dropped out of college following the Kent State shootings one of my articles on the protests was syndicated across the country. I started working then as a freelancer for the local community tabloids, paid by the inch. Oh, another thread! When I was in college I also was writing for science fiction fanzines, back in the days that they weren’t crowded with fanfic but were discussing fannishness and interpreting the field, and were filled with reviews and commentary. Sometimes they paid in copies, more often in egoboo, but they also led me to the semi-pro zines paying 1/4 or 1/2 cent a word (this was many years ago, I assure you!) for features and, yes — for original fiction. I started submitting to the semi-pro magazines and the first real success I had was with a story that won a $25 prize … and which has since been anthologized multiple times, earning far more than that original prize. There’s something else: in high school I helped with the literary magazine, and in my senior year, I was Editor. I learned a lot, including how to make chapbooks. What all of these disparate things say about that busily confused period in my life is that 1) I centered my life on writing, and 2) I was writing for money. Writing was always my way forward. By the time I met Sharon Lee — now my partner, wife, and frequent co-author — I’d had bylines in dozens of publications in this country and abroad, was a regular chess columnist in several papers, had been translated, and had unexpectedly blossomed into one of the Baltimore-Washington area’s premier — um, music reviewers. It was an accident, I swear. What happened next is a very mixed history of desperate times mediated by short-term successes and then longer term success, one that over and over again fell back on the understanding that this house is a house centered on, and yes, even powered by, word work. We traveled in SF art and books for awhile — even starting a bookstore — while our stories started earning attention and a little cash. When the bookstore lost its lease I ended up managing editor of a short-lived SF-oriented newspaper, Sharon went to work for an ad agency as a secretary but leveraged that into a copy writing job. The newspaper folded and I got a job as assistant manager in a rapidly expanding game store chain — and when that died, I took my last $35 and started a monthly newspaper. Sharon started a copy writing service and ad agency. We never stopped writing and we started selling more frequently, and when we sold three books to Del Rey we were set — we thought — and moved to a small town in Maine, where I had landed a newspaper job that turned out to be vaporware. lee_crystalsoldierThen, Del Rey’s sudden new editor was a disaster for us, halting the Liaden series in its tracks, and we got by for awhile as writing instructors. I taught a local adult ed class and we both taught correspondence students for the British American School of Writing. We got a well-paying gig writing a novella for a game company (a project which was never published, though) and Sharon got a job editing night-side news for the local daily paper while I did columns and computer articles for the same paper. I also was picking up part-time hours as children’s librarian for a nearby library, and when that proved a dead-end I moved to managing a computer store — where I ran the newsletter, wrote the TV ads. When the local paper went though a series of layoffs Sharon found herself freelancing for a weekly, turning out features like mad. I was working with a dotcom by then Suddenly, and without warning, after eight years or more of being “former novelists” we got a phone call — an offer to reprint the three Liaden novels — but that turned into a sale of those three books and four more – seven in one fell swoop! Because we’d continued to write we had four new Liaden books to offer as well as the standalone The Tomorrow Log, and we had a publisher who suddenly wanted whatever we could turn out for him — including an anthology. We were invited to be Guests of Honor at a convention, and then at another … So we worked with that company until they were caught in an over-expansion just when the market was contracting. In the meantime, though, we’d diversified somewhat, starting our own small press and selling chapbooks and t-shirts to the burgeoning Liaden fandom.  With our publisher suddenly gone we then finagled our mortgage and such with our chapbooks for another few months while Sharon went to work as a secretary at a local college and we also went direct to the internet, doing an early private crowdsourcing arrangement to write Fledgling, and then Saltation, online. miller_saltationA publisher came to us for ebooks, and then for all our books; Sharon stayed at the college for awhile, where she single-handedly out-published the English department for several years. And so it goes. We’ve got a five book contract in hand now, which means we’ve sold more than twenty five books together, and we’re doing what we’ve always done — we’re focusing on the words. We’ve had agents along the way, and friends and fans who’ve helped us tremendously. We didn’t do this alone, yes, that’s true. But the core of our experience, the key to being here as writers now, is that we kept looking to the word work whenever things got tough, and when they weren’t tough, we were doing the words. Advice? Center your life around what you want to do. Immerse yourself in the culture but continue to keep your own visions — and to make them central to your work. If you’re writing a series make sure there are multiple ways in for new readers, so they won’t be overwhelmed by the weight of what’s gone before. Vary your protagonists. Write a book without a villain. Keep an eye out for side-work of short stories or articles, but maintain a clear sight of what your aim is — to pay the bills while enjoying the heck out of life. So let me make a point. I got my first check for writing in 1969. My byline’s been on fiction, reviews, features, news, poetry, how-to articles, and columns. I’ve also done radio and TV ads, greeting card verse, and store openings. I don’t disdain any of my work, and some of my earliest fiction continues to earn money for me going on forty years after it was written. To make a long story short, I’m a professional writer. I’m in this for the long haul.
Ebook pioneer Steve Miller is a lapsed reporter, book reviewer, publisher, con-running fan, poet, and librarian who writes Science Fiction and Fantasy, most frequently in the Liaden Universe® he shares with Sharon Lee. He attended Clarion West, was Founding Curator at the UMBC SF Research Library and has been a Guest of Honor, Special Guest, and panelist at SF conventions across North America. Steve sold his first professional fiction to Amazing in the mid 1970s and since then his byline has appeared on dozens of books and dozens more chapbooks and short works of fiction as well as numerous newspaper and magazine articles. Steve and Sharon shared NESFA’s Skylark Award in 2012 to go along with various individual and joint accolades over the years. Trade Secret, the latest Liaden novel, was published November 5 by Baen in paper and electronically and by Audible for the audiobook market. Steve and Sharon have just started on their latest five book contract for Baen.
Previous Writing for the Long Haul PostsSharon Lee on remembering we’re not aloneBetty G. Birney on always challenging ourselvesNora Raleigh Baskin on making deals with the writing godsSean Williams on unpredictability and luckDeborah J. Ross on writing through crisisSharon Shinn on managing timeMarge Pellegrino on feeding the restless yearning to writeSarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passionsUma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberanceJennifer J. Stewart on finding community and supportSherwood Smith on keeping inspiration aliveMette Ivie Harrison on defining successJeffrey J. Mariotte on why we writeJudith Tarr on reinventing ourselvesKathi Appelt on the power of storyCynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity

Sharon Lee on Remembering We’re Not Alone (Writing for the Long Haul series)

Sharon Lee has been publishing for more than three decades, both on her own and with her collaborator and husband Steve Miller. Today she talks about the dangers of letting others tell us whether or not we have a career — and, perhaps more importantly, of assuming we’re alone when they do.
I’ve wanted to be a writer — specifically, a fiction writer — for as long as I can remember.  I don’t know why.  Possibly because stories gave me such very great pleasure as a small child. Also, I noticed that my mother was never angry when she was reading me a story; so I might have thought there was some magic involved. Possibly, it was because, as I grew older, I realized that, in stories at least, things came out as they ought. Possibly, I was just never really fit for any other kind of work. Whatever, take it as given:  I have always wanted to tell stories. I started writing for publication in March of 1972.  By which I mean that I first submitted a story I had written to a magazine in March of 1972. My first pro sale — to Amazing Stories — was in November 1979. In 1980, fellow writer Steve Miller and I married; and in 1983 we began collaborating. In 1984, we wrote our first novel together; it was published in 1988; and two more quickly after it — later in 1988, and in 1989. After which, we ascended to publishing nirvana on a rosy cloud of pulp paper, where we’ve dwelt these long years since, breathing the rarefied air of success, sipping milk and honey from a silvered glass. . . Er, no. What happened then, having published three mass market originals with Del Rey is that. . . . . . we were told that our books had not garnered sufficient numbers; and that we had no career. Now, it would have been bad enough, to only have been cut loose from our publisher for “bad numbers.”  But this “no career” business — that really twisted the tail of a discouraging situation. I stopped writing.  I felt like I had cheated, somehow; that I was a pretender, not a writer at all; that my books weren’t — had never been — real. Like I wasn’t real. So . . . a period of unrealness ensued; I withdrew from most of my writer-friends — being a pretender, you see — and tried to take up a . . . not-writing life, with a not-writing job, and not-writing . . . hobbies. Sad truth told; I wasn’t very good at not-writing.  Before I knew it, my clerk job at the local newspaper turned into a copy editing gig, and my experience there got me a side job as a reporter for another paper.  Even if I was an imposter as a science fiction writer, my skills were in demand for non-fiction.  I began to feel. . .a little. . .more real. So much more real, in fact, that, at home, I started sneaking to the computer — back in those days before the internet — and writing little bits of . . . things.  Vignettes.  Description.  Snatches of dialogue.  Proto-stories. Until, one day, without quite meaning to — I wrote an entire short story. I didn’t send it out.  I mean, I wasn’t crazy; I knew perfectly well that I had no career.  Despite which, I wrote another short story . . . and another one. Then I wrote a mystery novel, and, well . . . I began, quietly, to submit.  Little things, you know; small stories that nobody would notice. I didn’t sell anything.  Not under my byline, or under the Lee-and-Miller byline. By then, though, I’d gotten together the moxie to open a file and start typing a novel in the universe Steve and I had created.  I showed it to a friend — one of the two writers I still kept in contact with — and she made some suggestions. One of her suggestions was that I submit the manuscript for publication. Which, after a great deal of soul-seaching, I did. It didn’t sell. I’d like to say that I didn’t care, but that wouldn’t be true.  I did care, a lot.  More, I believed in the stories and in our universe; and I knew that they had a readership. Now hold it right there, you’re saying.  I thought the publisher cut you loose because your books hadn’t sold.  Suddenly, they had a readership?  How did that happen? Well . . . we became aware of our books’ readership because Steve had started a computer bulletin board, called Circular Logic.  And Circular Logic was part of FidoNet (this is all pre-internet, now), and, well, we started to get messages from people in far-flung places, like North Carolina, and Japan, and California, and Finland. . .asking if we were the Steve Miller, the Sharon Lee, who had written Agent of Change/Conflict of Honors/Carpe Diem. And they wanted to know when the next book was coming out. So, yeah; I knew we had a readership.  It was getting to them that was the problem. None of the publishers wanted to take on a broken series, which is what we had, at that point.  And we didn’t want to start over with a new series.  We had things we wanted to say; a vision that we wanted to pursue.  We liked the Liaden Universe® just fine. The clamor for something new from those readers who had found us was reaching a crescendo, so Steve did the only logical thing:  He started a small press, SRM Publisher, for the sole purpose of publishing a chapbook containing a couple of our stories that hadn’t sold, and selling them to our readers. That was supposed to be a one-shot; it wasn’t.  For fifteen years, SRM published Liaden short stories, and distributed them to readers by mail. That was, if not the turning point, then certainly a major intersection in our road as writers.  People wanted our work. We weren’t alone. After that . . . no, our pumpkin didn’t magically turn into a coach.  But we did eventually find a publisher who not only re-published our first three novels, but also the novels I-and-we had written during what amounted to nine years wandering the dark: Four complete novels in our Liaden Universe®, and one more outlined.  Seven books at once. We didn’t feel like imposters anymore; and we worked with that publisher for eight years — eleven novels and an anthology — until events overtook them and they crashed, messily, leaving us once again teetering on the edge of Publishing Death. This time, though, it was easier for us. For one thing, we knew that this situation, though of kind of Epic on the Catastrophe Scale, was not our fault.  We had a career; we were not false writers; we had been doing very well for the house, and for ourselves, before the crash. More importantly, this time, we had two things that we had lacked before: We had readers . . . . . . and we had a way to reach them — the internet. Not to put too fine a point on it; this time, we didn’t get depressed. We got angry. And we formed a plan. Far from quitting writing, we decided to write more; to write, in fact, an original novel in our universe and publish it to the internet, for free, one chapter at a time.  The only catch was that the next chapter would have to earn $300 in donations before we would released. Not too long after we began the Fledgling project, our agent sold two books that had been circulating, in proposal, to Baen. When the web-novel was completed, Baen purchased it, along with its surprise sequel, Saltation; and then offered contract for another novel.  And more novels, after that. As of this writing, Steve and I have done nine novels with Baen; I’ve done three fantasies; and we have a contract for five more titles.  Every single novel ever written in the Liaden Universe® is available, in print, as ebooks, and as audiobooks. . . . Having now told this story, of having come back from the dead twice, I’m not certain what lessons you — or I — ought to take from it. That, as Anne McCaffrey told me, many years later, sometimes it takes a book or a series a long time to find its “legs”? That being proactive is better than being inactive? Follow your vision, and rewards will follow? That story will out; no matter what? That we’re none of us alone? . . . I think, that last.  If I had it to do over again, I hope that I wouldn’t hide from my colleagues when disaster struck.  Knowing that you’re not alone; that others have gone through similar rough patches and Epic Disasters, is . . . priceless, really. Thanks for listening.
Sharon Lee has been married to her first husband for more than half her lifetime; she is a friend to cats, a member of the National Carousel Association, and oversees the dubious investment schemes of an improbable number of stuffed animals. Despite having been born in a year of the dragon, Sharon is an introvert. She lives in Maine because she likes it there. In fact, she likes it so much that she has written five novels set in Maine; mysteries Barnburner and Gunshy, and three contemporary fantasies: Carousel Tides, Carousel Sun, and Carousel Seas (available 2015). With the aforementioned first husband, Steve Miller, Sharon has written twenty-one novels of science fiction and fantasy — many of them set in the Liaden Universe® — and numerous short stories. She has occasionally worked as an advertising copywriter, a reporter, copy editor, photographer, book reviewer, and secretary. She was for three years Executive Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., and was subsequently elected vice president and then president of that organization.
Previous Writing for the Long Haul Posts – Betty G. Birney on always challenging ourselvesNora Raleigh Baskin on making deals with the writing godsSean Williams on unpredictability and luckDeborah J. Ross on writing through crisisSharon Shinn on managing timeMarge Pellegrino on feeding the restless yearning to writeSarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passionsUma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberanceJennifer J. Stewart on finding community and supportSherwood Smith on keeping inspiration aliveMette Ivie Harrison on defining successJeffrey J. Mariotte on why we writeJudith Tarr on reinventing ourselvesKathi Appelt on the power of storyCynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity

Nora Raleigh Baskin on Making Deals with the Writing Gods (Writing for the Long Haul series)

Over the past twelve years middle grade and young adult writer Nora Raleigh Baskin has published nearly a dozen books. Today she joins the long haul series to talk about something most writers never stop hoping for, no matter how long their careers: just One More Book.
Advice to myself I wanted to be published so badly. I could taste it. Or rather, I couldn’t. I couldn’t taste it. I couldn’t even see it. I could imagine it, but I couldn’t see it. I wanted it more than almost anything in my life at the time and I knew it wasn’t a sure thing, by any stretch. I was the downer in my SCBWI critique group. I was the one that made sure no one forgot that we could all be doing this forever and never make it. “There’s no guarantee,” I would say, just in case anyone had forgotten. “It’s not like you stand in line until your turn comes up.” They practically kicked me out. And I was the one at the NJ SCBWI who spoke up when one of our guest speakers, a NY editor, told his eager audience that we shouldn’t be writing to be published. We should do it just because we love it. “I doubt you would say that to a room full of men,” I countered. “Would you tell a class of medical students they should just be doing it for the love of being a doctor?” Nothing to do with my outspokenness (I don’t think) or my negativity but I wouldn’t be published for nine years. Five years of writing adult short fiction and sending it off to The Atlantic and The Paris Review (whatever was I thinking?) and then five more writing for children. I made all sorts of secret promises to the forces that be. One of those bargains with the universe was that if I could only publish one novel I would never ask for anything else. Ever again. Just one. Just this one. Please, let me just publish once. Then in 2000, I sold my first novel to Little, Brown and for a while I kept my word to myself. I felt completely validated. This was enough. More than enough. Just sitting at my son’s basketball game, high up in the bleachers, completely anonymous, my manuscript bought but a year from publication, I was content within myself. Now I was truly a writer. Then, the inevitable. I just wanted to be able to write a second book. One more. Just to prove to myself that it wasn’t a fluke. That I wasn’t a fraud and fake. Just a second book. Two published books. Two books, that’s all I ask. I struggled with that second book, for all the reasons of self-doubt and insecurity I just outlined. And then I met Patricia Reilly Giff who assured me that me the second book is always the hardest. She understood completely and validated my fears. I published my second book in 2003. It’s 2013. I have ten published novels. Subway Love will be my 11th in May, 2014 and every time, I am terrified. I’m terrified I can never do it again. I will run out of ideas. I’ll be too old. My brain will rot. I won’t sell enough and no one will offer me a contract again. I’ll get such bad reviews no one will want to publish me again. It really was a fluke after all. I am fraud and fake and it’s just a matter of time before everyone figures it out. Still, I keep writing. And keep making my deals with the writing gods: Just keep me in it for the long haul and I won’t ask for anything else. Just let me keep writing because I love to write. I find peace when I write. I find meaning in my life. I feel validated and alive. So– Let me sell, at least well enough, to stay in good favor with my publishers which is something I have no control over. Let me remember what I do have control over: To always be appreciative. Always listen the advice of my agents. Listen the suggestions of my editors because after the shock and ego-busting of seeing all those comments and marks it’s just a process. It’s all in the process. Always be grateful. Don’t be a pain in the ass. Remember to accept the business of my business and know that the marketing people and the publicity people are doing the best they can. They have many, many titles and the work they do is often not seen or obvious. Thank everyone. This is a privilege not a right. Handle bad reviews graciously. Handle good reviews graciously. Then I put everything and everyone else out of my head and try, once again, to write the best book I possibly can.
Nora Raleigh Baskin started writing in the 5th grade and never stopped either telling stories or believing in the power of words. In 2010 her novel Anything But Typical won the Schneider Family Book Award along with numerous other honors. Her most recent books, the young adult Surfacing and the middle grade Runt were both published this year, and her next, Subway Love, will be out in 2014.
Previous Writing for the Long Haul PostsSean Williams on unpredictability and luckDeborah J. Ross on writing through crisisSharon Shinn on managing timeMarge Pellegrino on feeding the restless yearning to writeSarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passionsUma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberanceJennifer J. Stewart on finding community and supportSherwood Smith on keeping inspiration aliveMette Ivie Harrison on defining successJeffrey J. Mariotte on why we writeJudith Tarr on reinventing ourselvesKathi Appelt on the power of storyCynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity

Sean Williams on Unpredictability and Luck (Writing for the Long Haul series)

Best-selling science fiction author Sean Williams published his first novel in the mid-90s and has been writing steadily ever since. Today he joins the long haul series to talk about the unpredictability of every new book–and about the role of luck in long-term writing careers.
This year is one of great significance to me. Half a lifetime ago–that is, exactly half my life–I dropped out of university to pursue a career as a writer, not knowing whether I’d fail utterly or succeed beyond my wildest dreams. I dreamed of the latter, hoped for something in the middle, and planned for the former. If I hadn’t sold a book within ten years, I promised myself, I would give up and go back to my studies. (Economics–ugh. That was a massive incentive.) As I write this, 23 years and 38 published novels later, I’m sitting in London waiting for my new book (Twinmaker) to come out. It’s had great press, marvelous covers and endorsements, publisher support beyond all expectations, but still I’m nervous. This book could easily tank–it’s happened before. It could go ballistic–that’s happened too. I dream of the latter, hope for something in the middle, and plan for the former. Whatever happens, I probably won’t starve. Mind you, I’ve come close–in the Western, First World sense of having to get a day job to pay the bills. It might sound absurd that anyone would consider this a tragedy, but I spent ten years working shitty part-time jobs in order to build up a career in publishing so I could do nothing but write novels full-time. And when I did go full-time, everything went just as it was supposed to, at first: six-figure income, numerous awards, a Locus recommendation, titles on the New York Times bestseller list, invites to festivals . . . Then came the crash. Suddenly I was writing just as hard as I ever had but earning much, much less, barely enough to service my credit card and tax debts, let alone live the high life. How did that happen? I’m still not sure. The Australian dollar got stronger and US advances didn’t go up to compensate: that was definitely part of it. When most of your income is pinned to the antics of a foreign currency, you’re vulnerable to market forces far beyond your control. But that wasn’t the whole story. I felt that there had to be a reason why things were suddenly so crappy. Something I could fix, and fast–before I developed scurvy or rickets or went insane in some appropriately Gothic way. Or declared the exercise a failure and went back to university. Eventually, through hard experience (and listening to other writers), I realized that the secret of my sudden lack of success probably wasn’t a bad agent, or a bad publisher, or even bad writing. It was bad luck. Sometimes books tap into the zeitgeist, or they don’t. Sometimes books stand out among a sea of other covers, or they don’t. Sometimes Oprah loves them, or she doesn’t (disclosure: Oprah has never even noticed my books). These aren’t things you can plan for. These are effects you can’t cause.  It’s just plain luck, good and bad. williams_saturnreturnsIf you look at a graph of my income from 1990 to 2000, it shows an almost perfect hyperbolic curve upwards, then after 2001 a straight line down. I’m still reeling from the shock of that sudden turn. There’s no formula to explain it and no way to prevent it from happening again. There was just an ongoing slog in the hope of creeping back up to where I had once been, praying for the opposite kind of luck to come my way. Eventually it did, after a long, hard slog, and I was able to eat properly again. And now I know to ignore the graph and avoid any kind of complacency. What’s that old saying? “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” There’s some truth to that–but no one ever tells you that the luck goes both ways. Publish 38 novels in 17 years and some of them are bound to do well, but some of them are bound to do badly as well. There’s no way to avoid it, even if you’re a massive bestseller (which I am not). You might be lucky enough to sell six million copies in one year, then only three million the next. That’s a huge drop. You feel it just as much as if you divide the numbers by a thousand, because luck is a relative thing. Up is up. Down is down. williams_metalfatigueIn my case it wasn’t the worst possible luck. I was still selling books; I was still being published. The internal devil’s advocate said: So what if I had to work like a slave to earn little more than minimum wage? I remained in a position that most writers dreamed of at the beginning of their careers. What right did I have to complain? Everyone whose career takes a dive is allowed to complain, I think–although never to readers, since it’s right and proper that they should care little about your suffering so long as the books keep coming. Complaining to other writers might lead you to coping strategies or support networks that will guide you through the tough years, but it won’t change actually anything. It didn’t change anything for me, as I slaved away for years, earning less than I had as a student despite writing three books a year. The only antidote to bad luck is good luck, and the only way to get that is keep rolling the dice. It’s a natural law that careers go up and down. When I started out, up was the only way my career could go. Now, it could go either way, which is the curse of being even remotely successful. As I type this in London, just days away from rolling the dice for the 39th time, I know it’s entirely out of my hands. All I can do is sit back and watch, and hope, and know that if it doesn’t work this time, maybe it will next time, or the time after, or . . .
#1 New York Times bestselling Sean Williams lives with his family in Adelaide, South Australia. He’s written some books–thirty-nine at last count–including the Philip K. Dick-nominated Saturn Returns, several Star Wars novels and the Troubletwister series with Garth Nix. Twinmaker, the first in a new YA SF series that takes his love affair with the matter transmitter to a whole new level, was released this November, shortly after he wrote this post. You can find some related short stories over at Lightspeed.
Previous Writing for the Long Haul Posts – Deborah J. Ross on writing through crisisSharon Shinn on managing timeMarge Pellegrino on feeding the restless yearning to writeSarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passionsUma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberanceJennifer J. Stewart on finding community and supportSherwood Smith on keeping inspiration aliveMette Ivie Harrison on defining successJeffrey J. Mariotte on why we writeJudith Tarr on reinventing ourselvesKathi Appelt on the power of storyCynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity