Author: Kelly McCullough

Kelly McCullough writes fantasy, science fiction, and books for kids of varying ages. He lives in Wisconsin with his physics professor wife and a small herd of cats. His novels include Numismancer, Winter of Discontent, the WebMage and Fallen Blade series — Penguin/ACE, School for Sidekicks, Magic, Madness, and Mischief, and Spirits, Spells, and Snark — Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He has Patreon and Ko-fi pages for those who are interested in supporting his work more directly. He also dabbles in science fiction as science education with The Chronicles of the Wandering Star — part of an NSF-funded science curriculum — and the science comic Hanny & the Mystery of the Voorwerp, which he co-authored and co-edited — funding provided by NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope. Kelly on Twitter, Facebook, G+, ello

My First Break as a Writer

This is the story of my first professional sale.

I’m proof that you don’t need connections or anything but a good story, at least at the short fiction level. I made my 1st sale by sending out short stories to markets that looked good in the market reports and collecting heaps of rejection letters. I didn’t know anybody at the short markets and I didn’t have any special in. I collected more than 90 rejection letters before I had my 1st sale—WebMage to Weird Tales. It came within a few months of my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sales. Respectively, The Wyrm OreBoreUS to TOTU, Soul of the Samurai to a pro rates magazine that paid me promptly and went under before they published the story, and The Sharp End to the Writers of the Future contest.

On the novels front, my path was a bit stranger. I’d had something like 20 short stories bought or published when I joined the Wyrdsmiths and had recently shifted back to writing novels–my first love. Not long after that I was at MiniCon where I met Jim Frenkel—then agent to fellow Wyrdsmiths Lyda, Naomi, and Harry. He said, “You’re a Wyrdsmith? Hi, I’m your agent, what have you got for me to look at?”

A few weeks later I sent him WebMage. He liked it and I signed up with his agency. He sent the book to one editor before he quit the agenting business. At that point he asked Jack Byrne of Sternig-Byrne to look at a few of his clients for possibly representation. I was one of those. I liked Jack’s style and he loved my work and I’ve been with him ever since.

It did take three more years—in which time I wrote three more novels—before WebMage sold to Ace, but that was mostly because WebMage and two of the other three in that group were tied up for a good bit of time in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at a multi-book hard/soft deal with a publisher who will remain nameless.

2013 update: The editor who tried to put that deal together is currently trying to put together another three book deal with the unpublished books from that original deal. Which goes to show how very strange this industry can be. Will keep my fingers crossed.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog August 8 2007 , and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Friday Cat Blogging Black Armband Edition

No captions today. Just kitties soaking up sun for the one who is gone.

Farewell Princess

Last night a grand dame of the cat world left us. Princess was the cat of my friend Neil Gaiman. She was a once-wild, wonderful, fierce, old lady with a mean streak a mile wide and fur like white silk. She sent more than one person to the hospital, and spilled my blood on at least one memorable occasion. She was beautiful and tough and more than half a creature of faery. She was also my friend—I visited her nearly daily while borrowing Neil’s running paths—and I loved her dearly. I will miss her, as I know Neil will, along with a whole lot of other people. She touched many lives in her twenty-two-plus years. Because I haven’t the heart for words right now, here are some of my favorite pictures of her (a few have captions because they insisted on it, but most don’t):

This is the very first picture I ever took of her in January of 2011

She loved to drink out of the tap, and insisted that the humans oblige her

She wasn’t often cuddly, but was very fierce about it when she was

This is my favorite shot of her

Because some pictures must be shared

She started drinking out of my glass when she was too tired to go down to the sink

Simply beautiful

She was so fierce

Pretty sure she was trying to figure out how she’d reach the gas pedal

With her long time housemate Coconut

Sleeping in the library

Claiming me for her own

And this is the last picture I took of her—napping on my lap shortly before leaving us

Goodbye Princess, you had a hell of run

Owning Your Work (pt 2 of 2)

Part 1 can be found here.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a good critique group or first readers, you’re going to get a lot of advice on your work, some of it spot-on, some of it close to the mark, and some of it that you violently disagree with. (If you’re not that fortunate, I’d strongly recommend doing something about it as you’ll learn a lot both by getting and giving critique).

The spot-on stuff is easy. You just do it. The close is also pretty easy, as it can be adapted to fit. It’s the violently disagree with that’s hard, because as much as you might like to, you shouldn’t just dismiss it.

Readers offer suggestions because they either 1) disagree with the choice you’ve made, 2) they’ve missed something you expected them to get, or 3) they’ve gone somewhere you didn’t expect. In all of those cases, it’s important for you as a writer to understand why that happened and whether it’s because you didn’t put something down on the paper that was in your head, because you’ve left something sketchy where you should have filled in the details to keep your reader on the path, because you didn’t think of it, or simply because your reader has missed something obvious—it does happen.

The process I go through when I’ve been handed a suggestion that seems to me to come out of left field is thus: 1) put it aside for a moment to see if my backbrain can field the ball and figure out what went wrong. 2) Wait to see if anyone else had the same problem/suggestion, or one that came in the same place. 3) ask questions of the critquer.

That last should be handled delicately. The person making the suggestions is giving of their time and perspective, and you owe them the courtesy of being both polite and respectful no matter how wrong-headed you might think this particular comment is. You’re not trying to defend whatever they’ve disagreed with, you’re trying to find the root of the disagreement.

I try to ask questions like, okay you’ve said X, can you expand on that a bit? Or, if I’ve got an inkling what’s wrong, here’s what I was trying to do there, did that come through? Or, sometimes, what if I told you x about what’s coming up, would that change things?

This is one of the places where the Wyrdsmiths really excel—often, while I’m still trying to figure out what lost someone, another person in the group who has better perspective, figures it out and gives me the piece I need to make sense of the critique, or better still, proposes a solution that fits into the spot-on frame, thereby saving me a ton of work.

Of course, sometimes it comes down to artistic or philosophical differences about where a story should go, and there you have to be willing to say X is going to make some percentage of my readers unhappy and accept the consequences, whatever those might be. It’s not much fun, but it’s what owning your work means.

Update Elizabeth Bear has a link to a post on editorial letters at Blue Rose Girls that’s relevant to the topic at hand.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog July 26 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Owning Your Work (pt 1 of 2)

Getting comments and critique on your work is one of the most valuable ways to improve it. It’s also something that you will have to deal with if you’re planning on working with agents and editors. Finding the right balance between doing what’s asked of you and putting your foot down is tough, especially when it could mean killing a deal (always a matter of last resort). There are two main questions you have to ask yourself when you look at a suggestion.

1, does it make the story better? If the answer to this is yes, you move on to question two. If it’s no, you have to take a moment and think about why the suggestion was made (okay, so you should do that if it’s a yes too, because you’ve just been offered a chance to learn something). I was going to talk about this in brief below, but I’ve discovered that it wants to be its own post on rewrites, so more on that later.

2, and potentially much harder to answer, does it advance the purpose of the story? This is the place where things go foggy and vary wildly depending on what sort of writer you are. If you’ve got the whole story in your head or in an outline and someone makes a good suggestion that doesn’t follow along, you’re posed with an immediate dilemma, go with the shiny new thing or stick to your outline. I’ve done both depending on the situation.

My very first short story sale involved taking the second half of a 6,000 word short and throwing it away to write a new ending. I’ve also looked at a beautiful idea and quietly (and somewhat sadly) put it aside. One of the few times I’ve really gotten hammered by a member of one of my writers groups (and rightfully so) was when I let myself slip at the time it was suggested and say that I wasn’t going to do something. I had good intentions, but it was a breach of etiquette and absolutely the wrong way to handle the choice.

In general, if you’re not going to take a suggestion, there’s no reason whatsoever to tell the person who made it, because it will only make them feel as though they’ve wasted effort. There are two exceptions to this. A, editorial/agent suggestions, in which case you discuss the problem the suggestion addresses and try to work out a comprise (more on this in the rewrite post). B, book length works where this person will be critiquing the story on an ongoing basis and where not taking the suggestion will have a significant impact on the reading of the story.

That latter was the case in the scene wherein I got hammered. I handled it the wrong way. What I should have done was shut my mouth and given myself a couple of days to think about it. Then, if I decided it still mattered (it would have in this case) I should have waited for the next meeting and spoken with the critiquer on an individual basis about why the (genuinely excellent suggestion) was incompatible with the novel I was writing.

What they wanted me to do would have made a good story, but it was a story that I had no interest in telling. The only way to stay sane in this business is to write what you love and love what you write. You are the one who is writing it and you are the one who’s name goes on the byline–it has to be something you believe in. You have to own the story.

Part 2 can be found here.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog July 23 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Press Releases, A Primer

Yesterday a writing friend sent me a request for help in formulating a press release for a reading for her hometown paper. As I was writing the response I realized the topic might make a good post here. Hopefully Lyda will chime in on the topic to correct or expand on my points since she has more experience with these than I do.

First, a general note on writing press releases.

The main thing to remember is the goals of the press release in descending order:
1. Getting your name and its association with publishing in front of the maximum number of eyeballs.
2. Getting the name of the current publication in front of same along with purchasing information.
3. Promoting the specific event if there is one associated with the press release.
4. Including details that will help the people attached to the eyeballs remember the first three goals in the same order.
5. Everything else.

Now, on to the specifics of the reading release.

Do it in standard journalism reverse pyramid style. Start with the important stuff in the first paragraph, who, what, where, when, why. Something like:

Para 1, Hometown writer, your name here will be signing copies of the title[s] at bookstore x at date and time. If it’s a collection–the anthologies include name’s story title as well as stories by big name authors here. Publisher and purchasing information here with the more prestigious and easily available publications first. Make sure to note that the books will be available at the signing. Updated 2013: Per Lyda’s comments on the original post, it’s always better if you have an event of some kind attached to the press release as that makes it more newsworthy for most journalists.

Para 2, Any other professional awards or credits if you’ve got them. Otherwise go to paragraph 3.

Para 3, this paragraph should be optimized for the specific paper, in the case of the release I mentioned above it’s a hometown paper: Biographical information about your links to the area and how you got your start in writing there–this can be reading stuff, or writing stories for school or whatever. The key is to make the links between this town and your writing. If you’ve got some tie to the bookstore, mention it here. That will remind the readers of the where and make the store remember your name fondly.

Next paragraph on what you write and why.

Further paragraphs expanding on the above.

The key with these is to get the information that the reader needs to go to the event up front and to follow up with why its important in this particular venue and after that a half dozen or so paragraphs of filler and biographical info. When a paper takes a press release that’s the order they want to see things in. Also, finish each paragraph such that the article could end right there. Smaller newspapers are likely to run the whole thing, but big ones will only run as many column inches as they have space for and will stop when they run out whether the press release has ended or not.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog July 17 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Friday Cat Blogging

My monkey is not in here, have you seen my monkey?

I see dead monkeys!

My monkey is kind of blurry…or that might be the vodka…

I haz a monkey, and you don’t.

I want a monkey too!

I eat monkeys.

The monkeys took all the good chairs*. 🙁

*Special guest cat courtesy of Scott Lynch.

Research and Me, or: The Compost Heap Model

Someone asked me about my research process for the WebMage books. I wrote the following up, and thought it might be of more general interest, as it explains my general model for research.

Most of the research I was doing with the WebMage books was by way of refreshing long standing reading in mythology, specific geographic information for local color, or computer tech stuff. I didn’t have to do a lot of new reading for the series because it’s all stuff (with exception of some of the local color and new tech) that was mostly in my head from years of reading widely in mythology and growing up in a household with both software and hardware computer folks.

In general, I don’t do a lot of research specific to the book I’m working on. I mostly try to read widely in a lot of fields on whatever interests me at the moment and then toss it all into the back of my head where it composts away in the dark for later application to fiction, or inspiration of same.

I wish I could be more specific, but that’s not really how I approach research, except for detail work that comes up as I need it. So, for a theater book, I might realize I need to look at a rehearsal schedule and email someone at a theater to see if I can get a copy. Or, I might realize I need to know what pistol the British military was using in 1939, and go look it up. Otherwise, everything gets fed into the woodchipper and then mounded up for later use.

That’s actually my primary story generation system as well, as things are always crawling out of the compost heap/mulch pile and making a break for it.

Updated to add: Librarians. When I do need those specific bits of information, I often email one my many librarian friends and tap their mad skillz to find the right bits with a minimum of fuss and hassle.

Friday Cat Blogging

I am very unsure about my toes.

CB_1451

I am very unsure about this ledge.

I am very unsure about becoming a bridge.

I am very unsure about the width of this radiator bench.

I am very unsure about the other cat.

I am very unsure about me too.

I am very unsure about the cameraman.

I am very unsure about last night’s whiskey.

I am very unsure if this radiator will keep me safe.

Be sure that it won’t.

The Implicit Contract Between Writer and Reader

Fellow Wyrdsmith Sean M Murphy mentioned this idea in the comments on my original what the author owes the reader post at Wyrdsmiths and it came up a lot at CONvergence 2007, so I thought I’d discuss it. When an experienced reader picks up a science fiction or fantasy story they do so with a number of implicit expectations which form a contract of sorts between the reader and the writer (this is also true for other genres, but the expectations have some variations, so I’m going to focus here on F&SF).

They expect that the story will be about something. They expect that there will be clues and foreshadowing that will point toward the ending. They expect that the author won’t introduce things into the denouement that were not introduced or implied somewhere earlier in the story. They expect things to conform to the general rules and tropes of the genre or for deviations to be explained at some point.

For example, readers expect science fiction to follow the general rules of science. The technology should be of a generally consistent level. Deviations from that norm should be explained either at the time of the introduction of the deviation, or at least noted as being a deviation, with the expectation that the reason will be explained later. If the author wants to write an SF story with magical elements, then the magic had better be shown to exist very very early in the story and there will have to be a scientific explanation (even if it’s just handwaving) somewhere in the story. Likewise, if you’re writing fantasy with elements of sf you want to let the reader know about it early on or at least hint at it.

Another important aspect of the implicit contract has to do with a term I’ve borrowed from science education, the problem statement. Somewhere early in the story, ideally in the first couple of pages, the author has to define the problem that is going to be solved or addressed over the course of the story. The problem can be, the One Ring is a powerful magical device and we will have to learn what it is and what to do with it. It can be Miles Vorkosigan has washed out of military school, what is he going to do with the rest of his life? It can be Corwin of Amber realizing he doesn’t know who or what he is. The answer doesn’t have be resolved as the character expects or wants it to be, in fact in general it shouldn’t be as they expect, though it should be logical and follow naturally from the flow fo the story. But the reader needs to have some idea what to watch and watch for, or they will become increasingly unhappy over the course of the story, and downright irate if the rug is suddenly jerked out from under them somewhere along the line.

Now, it’s possible to do every one of the things I’ve said you shouldn’t, but it has to be done consciously and extremely well or the book is likely to end up traveling in a ballistic arc and lose you a reader, certainly for that story and possibly forever.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog July 12 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)