Category: About Kelly

Rewrites and the Happy Writer

This is a merging of two posts I wrote for the Wyrdsmiths blog back in ’08.

Post the first: Justine Larbalestier is saying very smart things about rewriting at her blog. It’s an involved post and definitely worth reading. As usual I don’t agree with her about everything, but I’m a funny sort of monkey and much less prone to rounds of self-doubt and low self esteem than the average author.

Post the second (a response to that part of that otherwise wonderful post on rewriting that made me want to tear my hair out): Aspects of Justine’s enormously useful post on rewriting have inspired me to write a post I hadn’t planned.

It’s really all because of this paragraph: Reading through what you have written with all those contradictory and annoying comments scrawled in the margins will most likely fill you with despair. Don’t worry: Despair is an integral part of the rewriting process. Your despair will deepen. When you’ve been over a manuscript four or five or twenty or a hundred times you’ll know the true meaning of despair.

This idea drives me crazy. Yes, despair can be a part of the process, and for many writers it is. But “integral?” No, I don’t think so. I’ve certainly felt despair as a writer, but always over the business, never over the writing. I love writing. I love rewriting too. I even love finding those structural flaws Justine talks about. Do I like that they’re there? No. But I love the problem solving game involved in fixing them.

I actually find the idea that every writer must have moments of massive self-doubt and misery over their work to be deeply pernicious. It has the potential to cause happy writers to either devalue their own non-despair inducing process or to seek out misery in hopes that it will improve their work. And that’s just not right. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the whole thing.

If you do happen to feel despair as part of the process, that’s all right–there are 1,001 ways to write a novel, every one of them right. But if you don’t, don’t beat yourself up over it. Revel in not suffering for your art. For a longer take on that, go read Jane Yolen’s wonderful book on writing: Take Joy.

The process doesn’t have to hurt.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog as two posts on January 2 2008 and, January 3 2008. Original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

 

Books I Have Written or Tried to Write

I got this meme from Naomi Kritzer who got it from jpsorrow.

01. 1990 Uriel

My first Urban Fantasy, a vampires and faeries book. From which I learned that: I can write a book. I can do it fast. I really like doing it. Rejection letters are not much fun, and this business is tougher than it looks. Oh, and that I am not Anne Rice, and that’s a good thing. Status: Trunked for now.

02. 1991 The Swine Prince

High Fantasy Farce. Wizards and princes and thieves and gnomes. From which I learned that: Uriel was not a fluke. I can write funny. I still don’t much like rejection. I am not Terry Pratchett, although I’m much closer to being Pratchett than I am to being Rice, and again, it’s a good thing. Status: mostly rewritten to current standard. Needs a new first 10,000 words.

03. 1992/1993 The Assassin Mage

High Fantasy. Book I of III, wizard assassins. From which I learned that: I really really like this writing stuff. Rejections suck. This business is tough, but I’m going to make it if it kills me. Status: Trunked with the intent to rewrite it as a YA.

04. 1994 (Partial) Uprising

High Fantasy. Elves and dead gods. Shiny. From which I learned that: I maybe need to figure out why I’m not selling stuff (I wander off to do short stories for three years). I also learn that I am not Mercedes Lackey and that this is an exceptionally good thing. Status: Trunked for now.

05 1997 (Partial) Family Planning

A scene is written in which a bunch of really cool characters have intense and interesting dialog that implies many dark and wonderful things. I fall in love. It goes nowhere. From which I learned that: Loving a story doesn’t mean knowing where it goes or how to write it. Status: This is one I will come back to.

06. 1998/1999 WebMage

What I sometimes call my senior project book. This is where I finished my writer’s equivalent of college. (My real college experience finished when I got a BA in Theater in 1991) Cyberfantasy that will sell in 2005. I sold the short story, my first sale, Woot! I’ve written another story in the same world. It occurs to me that there might be a novel here. In a fit of optimism I plot it out and begin. From which I learned that: Writing short stories has taught me an enormous amount about plot, story, and only putting in what should be there. Also, I learn how to write subplot that supports the main plot and how to write theme. This is the book that gets me an agent, and that keeps a second one when my first agent closes up shop and offers a bunch of us to a fellow agent. Status: In print.

07. 2001 Winter of Discontent

Contemporary fantasy. Shakespeare, Richard III, MacBeth, A touch of Coriolanus and The Tempest. From which I learned that: I am still deeply in love with Shakespeare, care deeply about theater, and am not so fond of theater people. That handling 8 viewpoint characters is a real challenge. That writing about things you love is pure joy. That I can write 60,000 words in 30 days without breaking a sweat. That I am very interested in the idea of belief and how it shapes the world we see (sub this, that being the child of a paranoid schizophrenic may have something to do with same). That my agent may not always love everything I write, but that he’ll support me wherever I go because he has faith in me and my work. I tend to think of this as my Master’s thesis in writing. I’m still very much learning and mastering my craft. Status: Under submission.

08. 2002 Numismancer

Contemporary fantasy. Coin magic. The EU and the Euro. More belief and reality. My dissertation book. From which I learned: An awful lot about directed research. How to successfully transfer dream cool to book cool. That thinly fictionalized incidents from my life will sometimes read as less believable than stuff I simply make up. Status: Under submission.

09. 2003 The Urbana

Contemporary fantasy. Assume that the fey really did die out. What evolves to use all that magical energy? That’s where this one started. From which I learned that: I can write a book that I’m not feeling one hundred percent enthused about because I know that a lot of my readers are likely to enjoy it. How to love what I’m writing on a day-to-day basis even when I’m not as enthused as I have been about other books. I’m really pleased with this book, and I think of it as my first truly professional novel. Status: On submission.

10. 2004 (Partial) Outside In

Contemporary dark fantasy, architecture magic. From which I learned that: I am much more interested in certain aspects of architecture and construction than my writers groups. That I need to rethink some of the structure of this book. That being depressed makes it much harder for me to sustain a book in the face of criticism. Status: Trunked for now.

11. 2004 (Partial) Ave Caesar

Mystery, cozy, theater. A departure for me, and one that I want to come back to. From which I learned that: If your early readers aren’t familiar with mystery as a genre, you may have a problem. Writers groups that specialize in one genre are probably more effective than groups with lots of folks doing different things. Status: Trunked for now, but I’ll come back to it.

12. 2005 Chalice book 1

Young adult contemporary fantasy–arts magic. From which I learned that: YA is a blast to write and that the shorter length is incredibly natural for me. Oh, and that I still feel deeply and deeply ambivalent about theater. Status: On submission as part of a tetrology.

13. 2006 Cybermancy

WebMage Book II. From which I learned that: I can write a second book in a series that wasn’t supposed to be a series, just a stand-alone. That Greek myth matters deeply to me. That being paid and having deadlines are both really great motivators for me. That I really really like turning books in early. Status: In print.

14. 2006 The Black School

Young adult, alternate history, WWII, fantasy. From which I learned that: Everything I liked about YA last time goes double for this book. That my YA is much darker than my adult fiction. That anger at contemporary politics is a great motivator for me to write. That my writers group likes my dark stuff more than my funny stuff, or at least that they like these books more than anything else I’ve ever done. Status: On submission as part of a trilogy.

15. 2007 Codespell

WebMage III. From which I learned that: I can write an ongoing series and enjoy it. That I’m happier writing under contract from proposal than writing spec books. That my own assessment of how smoothly I’m writing doesn’t necessarily agree with my readers–everybody else liked this book more than I did, and I could see why when I reread the copyedited manuscript. That I really like turning things in way early and that this makes my editor happy too. Status: In preprint, releases in June.

16. 2007 (currently unfinished) MythOS

WebMage IV. From which I learned that: I should feel free to make strong changes in an ongoing series as long as I talk to my editor and agent first (did that, they were quite happy with the proposal and hopefully they’ll like the result as well). That I really want to write at least one more WebMage book after this one. Status: Under contract, half-complete, due October ’08.

17. 2007 (currently unfinished) Duel of Mirrors

Contemporary fantasy with a humor edge. Hopefully this will be the logical successor to the WebMage books and will help build that thread of my writing brand. From which I learned that: It’s always a joy to fall in love with a new book. That travel juices the heck out of my creative mind. That I become very difficult to talk to when I’m in composing mode. Status: Begun, in plotting phase–aiming for three chapters and an outline for proposal.

18. 2000-2004 Chonicles of the Wandering Star

Hard SF, YA, illustrated short-story collection/serial novel for the teaching of physical science. This one is unusual which is why it’s down here out of order. It’s a work for hire project that I wrote as part of National Science Foundation funded full year physical science curriculum. I was hired to develop a science-ficitonal context for the curriculum and to write shorts as teaching tools. Fun project. From which I learned that: If the pay is high enough, work-for-hire is a great deal. That I can write YA. That I can write 1,000 word short in an hour if I have to. That I can write that short to teach a specific science concept, and that I can do it well enough to make a goodly percentage of the students who read it happy. That deadlines and getting paid are great motivators for me. Status: In print.

2013 Update: Yeah, I’ve written a bunch since the original post.

19. 2008 The Eye of Horus

Book II of The Black School. I love this book and it’s predecessor, but despite near universal agreement from those who’ve read them that they are some of my best writing I have not been able to sell them. See also: Argh!

20. 2008/2009 SpellCrash

The last WebMage book for some time to come. In some ways I think this is the best of the series. I learned so much about writing on the way to this one. I’m somewhat bummed that it is also the least read of the books. Status: in print.

22. 2009 Spirits of the Past

First book in a dark contemporary fantasy series centered around alcohol magic. This book exists only as three chapters and a series outline that now comprises six books. There is an excellent chance that this will be my next adult series once Fallen Blade is finished. I love the premise of these and still really want to write them.

23. 2010 Broken Blade

Fantasy noir with a badly broken hero. Status: in print, the first of six confirmed books in this series and now available both in German and as part of a Science Fiction book club omnibus edition of the first three Fallen Blade books. I think I’m finally getting the hang of this writing stuff.

24. 2011 Bared Blade

Fallen Blade II. Status: in print, in omnibus, and in German shortly.

25. 2011 Crossed Blades

Fallen Blade III. Status: in print, in omnibus, and in German shortly.

26. 2012 Blade Reforged

Fallen Blade IV. In print as of June. I’m loving this series more and more as I go along. It’s enormous fun to write something that’s simultaneously episodic in the detective novel mode and a multi-book epic fantasy storyline. Finding the balance between having each book complete in itself and building multi-book and series arcs challenges me every day.

27. 2013 School for Sidekicks: The Totally Secret Origin of Foxman Jr.

My first Middle Grade book. Silly superhero science fiction about a boy who sets out to become a hero and ends up at the School for Sidekicks. I had a ball writing this and learned a lot about writing something much closer to pure humor. I learned even more in the first round of revisions—there’s a huge difference in how books are written and marketed for younger readers. Current revision with my editor at Feiwel and Friends—crossing my fingers that she like the revised version which includes 25,000 words of material not in the first draft. Staus: under contract, handed in and through one round of revisions.

28. 2013 Drawn Blades

Writing this right now and about 25% of the way through it. Barring misfortune this will be my 20th completed novel. …how the hell did that happen? Again, barring misfortune it will be my 11th published. One thing I’m finding absolutely joyous about writing this book is that I’m getting to pull stuff from novel attempt number four up there in 1994—there’s stuff from the early years that I loved that I’m only now getting good enough to pull of. I’m working on an incredibly compressed deadline on this one due to me make a minor but self-compounding mistake in my workflow. Status: under contract, in process.

29. 2014 Darkened Blade.

Outlined, under contract, and due in June. I’ve reached a point now where managing my time and learning to say no to projects that I’d really like to do is becoming increasingly important. I feel that I mostly have the hang of the writing part writing books, though I continually strive to push the edge of what I can do, and still land on my nose with some regularity. The rest of being an author? There, I’m learning new things all the time.

(A bit over half of this was originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog November 26 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted, reedited, and updated as part of the reblogging project)

Notes for …And a Bottle of Rum (Aqua Vitae)

So, I thought it might be fun for my readers to get a view of the inside of my head. I’ve been working on and off on a project tentatively titled Aqua Vitae. It’s a contemporary fantasy series with six books loosely plotted out so far. I hope it will be my next group of books for adults following the Fallen Blade series which would would put it on shelves sometime around 2017. I just got back from Jamaica (setting for book six) and these are my raw notes for the book. Very little here in terms of story since that’s all established in the notes for the previous volumes. This is all about atmosphere.

Title: “…And a Bottle of Rum”

Notes on Jamaica for Aqua Vitae series

Pirates and rum runners and ganja, oh my.

August: ~90 Relentlessly hot out of the wind but not bad with sea breeze or on the beach where you can wander down and float for a bit to cool off. Bikinis everywhere. Tourists standing in the water drinking rum and pretending they’re not smoking weed. Roasted breadfruit, delicious and starchy like a natural pretzel, but pale and veined like a yellow sweet potato.

Gareth the bartender. Crystobel the desk clerk.

Old men with young girlfriends.

2010s portion of story. Ya Mon has a soft y emphasis on the A—yA Mon. Ask the bartender for whatever’s fun to make—neverending variety of different rum drinks. Hazey-dazey beach scene soaks up ambition. Hustling vendors march the beach—dressed laid back with a mellow attitude, but soaking in sweat and working their hustles hard:

“Ciiiiiigarettes—Ciiiiiigarettes—Ciiiiiigarettes!” Plastic bag of cigs

“Saahvoneers—Saahvoneers (souvenirs)” Big plastic tray—conchs

“Lobsters mon!” A couple of lobsters dipped in the ocean periodically

Quieter, friendly, “Hey Mon, need some ganja, I set you up.”

Bright colored little open boats with rods on the rails down at the edge of the resort where security can pretend to ignore them. “Fishing Mon?”

A man roars up to the edge of the sand: “Jet ski?”

Beach musicians, guitar and banjo, using an empty VHS rental container as a tip jar. Good voices, mostly old men with dreadlocks and smiles like the musicians in Mighty Quinn.

Tour guide, chatty see the real Jamaica, Appleton, Black River—certified by the tourist board. Got me a taxi with a cooler full of red stripe. Got me some skunk weed too if you want smoke. Not up for a tour? I can still get you the stink, Mon.

This gentle version is at the resort with guards and staff to police the beach. The sales are harder, pushier where there are no such watchers.

Sun so bright that you can burn in the shade just from bounce light. Hairy chest and legs SPF 10+. Sunscreen wears off and you cook, but not where the hair is, not in the shade at least. Lay on the beach, move with the shade, drink rum, wander down to waves when the shade get too hot.

All kinds of rum, sweet, spicy, sharp. White, brown, blended with coconut or banana. White rum, pineapple juice, splash of lime-deadly refreshing on a hot afternoon.

Steel drum band. Men and women. Three tops rigs with two drums each. One set of big complete oil drums (four). One regular old drum kit. Dancers doing headspins and all the stuff we eighties children think of as breakdancing, but a tropical beat.

Beach party, dancing to drums and electric guitar on the edge of the waves. Splash out to knee deep when the sweat runs too thick from dancing. Scottish step dancing surprisingly appropriate.

Walking along the interface between water and sand at sunset, waves less than ankle height, rum buzzing in your head.

The rains coming with thunder and lightning every day between 3-5 in the afternoon. Usually quick and cooling, then off, but every so often with the hint of monsoon. The boatmen stand under the tiny shelter of the the fish sanctuary sign, and bail when the rain has passed.

Feral cats live on the edge of resortland begging scraps from the tourists. The cautious hiding on the edges, the more successful, playing the loving house cat-hustling every bit as hard as the beach vendors. Compact cats—7lbs or so. Content to wait in the rain if it means they get some jerk chicken or grilled fish.

Smokers everywhere, and more black tourists than white. White folks often from Italy or Spain or points east. Lots of slavic accents. Only redhead on the beach is with me. Men with shaved heads and weightbench muscles abound. Tattoos are everywhere. The most obnoxious tourists are American, same as everywhere else.

Most tourists have a light buzz on, rum or ganja. Though some are gone by noon, really drunk drunks are rare. Maybe because the culture encourages the light buzz and demystifies alcohol and weed.

In resortland its rare to go half an hour without smelling someone light up. The weed smokers are neither furtive nor brazen, and the smell is what tells you they’re there more than behavior does.

The staff and the locals all laid back smiles. Some of that’s the job, some of it’s the culture. They work hard, but don’t rush. Handclasp or fist bump to say hello and goodbye. Everyone seems to have good teeth, often flashed in smile. When they speak amongst themselves it’s patois, fast and impossible for this outsider to parse. Braids and dyes are popular for the women—long hair mostly. Men mostly wear it short, in tiny dreads, high and tights, or low afros. Quite a few shaved heads though, and the longer dreads can be seen here and there, mostly on musicians.

Rehearsals for Jamaican dance show. Walkthrough to adjust the dance to the available space. Tights and legwarmers for heat even when its eighty out.

Sitting in the ocean during really heavy rain cold on shore, warm in the water. Rain so hard you can barely see, like spatters of sleet on my bald head. Marvelous as it was. Glorious in book form with a bottle of passed back and forth in the warm surf. Run ashore to fetch a bottle, feels like stepping into a hot bath when you splash back into the waves. Lightning overhead so loud and so close you can feel it vibrate your chest cavity like a skin and bone drum.

Tropical wedding. Groomsmen in whit linen shirts and sand pants. Groom in a sand suit. Bride in a white and sand silk mermaid that somehow works. Bridesmaids in teal, one, two, or no straps. Caribbean rock band with a teal guitar that matches the dresses. Loud obnoxious Americans who smoked and drank the week away, ruining other folks fancy dinners suddenly and briefly transformed into something  marvelous as they sway down the hall to steel drums on the way to a beautiful moment. After the recessional, once the wedding party has walked out of easy hearing, the band breaks into an instrumental Hotel California with the steel drums going sinister and eerie, and you suddenly wonder what fate awaits the wedding crowd once they revert to the “ugly American” stereotype. The story turns again, transformed into a prelude to horror…perhaps the dark sorcerer of Aqua Vitae did not like having his fancy dinner interrupted.

Speaking of which, the author would like to note that in combination with the water pouring out of the ceiling of the fancy Sir Andrew restaurant, the loud American crowd transformed a romance story first to disaster, and then to charming absurdist farce.

Difficult Things

The most difficult things I’ve attempted as a writer are to write funny and to write poetically well—i.e. in a way that doesn’t look overwrought or overwritten.

I’m not actually sure which is harder, but I know which I’m better at. The books where I’ve written poetically are none of them in print yet, though I’ve had more than one editor say very nice things about them. Mostly that they like them but don’t think they’re commercial enough. I’ve even had editors try to put deals together for them, but as yet they have all gone boom at some point.

Funny on the other hand. Well, even my more serious books get reviewers saying nice things about the elements of humor. I’m good at funny. I have the checks to demonstrate it. Poetic…well, I think I’ve done it well when I’ve tried, and the lurkers* support me in email—I have the very kind rejection letters to demonstrate it.

The thing that I occasionally find frustrating about this is that if you’re doing comedy right, it looks effortless. The reason this is frustrating is that when it gets really hard, as it does sometimes, you feel a bit of a jerk for saying “Hey, this is hard, and I’m stressed about it.” Whereas, no one thinks twice if you’re known for writing beautiful, poetic prose, and you say “Hey, this is hard, and I’m stressed about it.”

This is because, when you’re reading along and you come across a long beautiful poetic passage, you generally think something like “wow, that’s gorgeous, I wish I could write like that,” or “wow, that’s gorgeous, they sure can write.” It’s obvious that what the poetic writer is doing is hard, and people acknowledge it without even thinking about it.

OTOH, when you’re reading along and you come across something really funny,** you laugh and keep right on moving, because that’s what a good joke does. It makes you laugh and it makes you feel a little lighter and more ready to go on. It acts as a lubricant for life, and lubricant is something you generally notice most in its absences.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather have the book contracts and the money that comes with them and make people smile when they read than be able to get more sympathy when I’m feeling whiny. But it was something I was thinking about, and when I’m feeling thinky I generally end up writing about it, because, hey, writer—that’s what we do.

One final note here and I shall go back to attempting to make the very difficult look like slipping on a banana peal. Neil Gaiman. Among the things that make Neil one of the best writers in our field is his ability to simultaneously do both. He writes things that are beautiful and poetic and funny, which makes people say “Wow, that’s gorgeous, how does he make it look so easy,” and then laugh about it, which is amazing.

__________________________________________

*In this case lurker = editor.

**There are exceptions, of course, mostly in the realm of socially relevant humor, where you laugh because it hurts, or because it’s uncomfortable. But the kind of humor I write is mostly there to make you feel like your day just got a little better.

Dinosaur Moment(s)

When I first started breaking into the business of writing F&SF I was fortunate enough to meet and by mentored by a number of Big Name Authors. I am eternally grateful to those folks and that’s part of why I’m here with the other Wyrdsmiths doing this writing blog thing. There’s not a whole lot I can do for the BNAs who helped me out, but I can pass on that help to the folks who are climbing the mountain behind me.

Those BNAs gave me a huge amount of good advice on the craft of writing, and a great deal of good advice on the business of writing post-first novel offer. The one place where I had to carefully filter the advice I was getting was in the area of landing that first sale. This is because the world of publishing has been changing at astonishing speed over the last thirty years or so, and advice that was stellar then (whenever then may be) is sometimes simply invalid for the newbie unpublished writer of today. I will occasionally (and entirely goodheartedly) call this stuff dinosaur advice-magnificent in its time, but not such a great idea now that all these nimble little mammals have started cluttering up the scene.

In my class last night someone asked me a question about getting a start in writing by publishing with small presses. In that instant I knew that I had just had my first dinosaur moment–I’m sure I’ll have more. I know that small press is changing the face of the industry and I’m pretty certain that it’s going to change it much more radically in the very near future. There are quite a number of small presses that are doing great work, getting books in distribution channels, winning awards, and giving their authors exposure they just couldn’t get elsewhere. So far so good. But in terms of submitting to small presses, their relationships with agents, and even where to find that kind of information I am totally clueless. In short those darn whipper-snapper mammals are changing the face of publishing and me–big old dinosaur that I am–I don’t understand the rules of the new game.

Update 2013: I’ve had a lot more of these in the six years since I wrote this post. I basically no longer give advice about short story markets. I still don’t know much about the small press scene. And self-publishing, which used to be mostly vanity press and anathema to a career, has blossomed into the indie-publishing movement where a ton of fascinating new models for making a living writing are springing up. Given the rate of change in the publishing industry, I’m starting to think that break-in advice has a finite life cycle of 1-3 years at this point in terms of the business side. On the other hand, the writing side doesn’t change much: Write something really good. Find a way to get reader eyeballs and transfer reader dollars to your bank account. Rinse. Repeat.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog October 19 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Kelly’s CONvergence 2013 Schedule

Friday July 5, 2013 7:00pm – 8:00pm, Room 2201

Reading

Kelly McCullough will be available to read work from his newest book (actually, I’ll probably read from the next one). Panelists: Kelly McCullough.

Saturday July 6, 2013 2:00pm – 3:00pm, Sofitel Bordeaux

Writing For Different Formats

A discussion about how writing styles change when one is writing in different formats. How do you adjust? What is the same? Panelists: Rob Callahan, Sean E. Williams, James Moran, Kelly McCullough, Roy C Booth

Saturday, July 6, 5:00pm – 6:00pm, Autograph Table

Signing – Kathy Sullivan/Kelly McCullough/Emma Bull

Kathy Sullivan, Emma Bull and Kelly McCullough will be available to sign their works. Panelists: Kathy Sullivan, Emma Bull, Kelly McCullough.

Sunday, July 7, 12:30pm – 1:30pm, Edina room

Atheist Authors

How do authors’ personal views influence their works? How does the atheist author approach writing the fantastic? Panelists: Melinda Snodgrass, Rob Callahan, Kelly McCullough, Aimee Kuzenski, Peter Hautman.

Sunday, July 7, 2:00pm – 3:00pm, Sofitel Bordeaux

Use of Magic in Books

There are may ways to structure a magic system. What are some of the best and how what does it take to make a system of magic convincing and interesting? Panelists: Caroline Stevermer, Sean M. Murphy, Kelly McCullough, Lou Anders, Haddayr Copley-Woods

New Writer Cycle-Strange Monkey

So this is going to be another post in which I talk about not being like all the other monkeys, which is more a reflection on my own personal oddities than on anyone else’s experience

It all started because Jay Lake was talking about being a newbie in the F&SF writing world in response to Paul Jessup’s post on the same phenomena* and Lyda Morehouse linked to both in her benchmarks post here on the Wyrdsmiths blog.  I find my experiences to have been quite different really from the start–not better, just different–and I’m not sure why that is, but I’m guessing it has to do with two things, coming out of theater and the way I’ve always set up my personal goals.

Goals first: Mine has never been to be the best thing ever or to win the respect and adulation of the writing world (mind you I’d consider achieving either of those things as a hell of a perk). Nor have I ever set out to crack this or that market as anything but an interim goal. No, what I’ve wanted to do from day one is tell stories and make a career of telling stories. Please note that I won’t be able to tell if I’ve truly achieved that goal until I’m quite old and looking back, and that any individual sale or award or whatever will only count as a signpost at best. And in response to Lyda’s benchmarks post mentioned above, I’ve always counted my benchmarks by stories produced and sold, with the markets that take them being almost irrelevant as long as they meet professional criteria.

Background: Because I grew up in theater I learned in my bones that nothing would come easy, that I would always have to work in a continuous and ongoing way to improve my craft, and that it would be a lifetime endeavor. I also learned in my bones that other people would be able to see things in my work that I couldn’t–both positive and negative and that if I could learn from something that one of them pointed out I would get better.

That meant that I never had that I’m the best thing since sliced bread, why don’t they see my genius thing going on, or, at least, only for spans of a few minutes at a time. An early confirmation of this came when my wife was reading my first novel and would point out an awkward sentence. I could see that she was right, but couldn’t then see how to fix it. That was occasionally frustrating, but since I’d already experienced similar things in theater, I knew it was a stage, and that the way to get past it was to improve my craft.

I do admit to the occasional brief bout of look at what all the cool kids are doing and if only I hung out with them I’d have an easier time, but that was balanced early on by the enormous satisfaction of getting acceptances and encouragement from editors who didn’t have any reason to say nice things to me but the quality of my stories.

I guess that’s all a long winded way of saying: Focus on writing the stories and getting better. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. There is no secret password or magic clubhouse, and wasting energy looking for them will only take away from the important stuff. Also, there are 1,001 and one ways to write and every one them correct.

P.S. Jay’s exactly right to talk about a member of the f&Sf professional writing community in terms of large high school—in part because it’s about the right size, and ape hierarchies are pretty consistent in how they self-organize. At the same time, I went to an open school, and was simultaneously, a gamer, a theater geek, a student government nerd, and one of the popular kids, so I firmly believe that breaking the mold is possible.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog August 24 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

*2013 Update: The original version of Paul’s post has vaporized, so the current link goes to the wayback machine.

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)

Travel and Recharging the Batteries

So I’m just back from two weeks wandering around the Canadian maritimes with friends (Or, I was in June of 2007 when I first wrote this). On one level it was a vacation, on another level it was very much a business trip. One of the most important things a writer can do is collect new experiences, ideas, images, and places that can be filtered and focused and used as grist for the mill of our work.

For me, travel is one of the most important ways to develop new ideas and scenes for works in progress and works yet to be, in part because I’m a world driven writer. On this trip I had two particularly fabulous visits that will be incorporated into future work, as will the whole trip over time. Oh, and I might get a bit of blog fodder as well, if you hadn’t guessed.

First was a place called Woodleigh. It was one of those weird tourist attractions driven by an eccentric genius with intense focus. In this case it was a good sized parklike area studded with miniature versions of important British landmarks in varying scales, including a Tower of London big enough to walk through and a Westminster with doors only a few inches high but with two tons of lead used in the roofing. Fascinating and utterly bizarre, it will be a major and important setting for parts of WebMage book IV. In fact, the book will take place almost entirely in the Canadian Maritimes.

Second and even more important for me was Halifax and in particular, The Citadel—an 1850s era British fortress with a mix of kilted re-enactors and actual soldiers manning it. The place was fantastic and I literally couldn’t move without getting story ideas. In all I collected scenes and ideas there for WebMage IV, The Eye of Horus, Outside In, and a new as yet untitled book to be written after I’ve got some free time again, maybe 2-3 years out at the current rate. I took well over a hundred pictures and made a number of short cryptic notes that tie back to big ideas for various stories. A lot of it needs to marinate in the back of my head for a while, especially the future Halifax book, but some of it will come out more immediately with WebMage IV and Eye of Horus. 2013 update: It did indeed come out in both of those books.

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

Slow Going

2013 Update: This is part of my reblog series, though it’s one I waffled about throwing in. I don’t think it’s all that useful in terms of being a helpful process post, but I do think it’s probably worth throwing in as an example of things that don’t change. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at this or how fast you normally write. There are always slow times, and they’re always frustrating. Witness my past three weeks. Sigh.

I don’t think there’s a writer alive who doesn’t find themselves wishing they wrote faster. If not in general, then on this or that day or project. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a slow writer or, as in my case, a relatively fast one, you always wish you could go a little faster. That’s how the third WebMage book has been going for me.

Last week and much of the week before that I was sick.

The week before was a travel week with three days eaten up on the road.

The week before that I was getting the final draft of my previous novel off to my agent.

The week before that was spring break and Laura was home instead of teaching. Even after 18 years, having her around distracts me from writing–I tend to spend a lot of time just being happily aware of her when she’s around.

And that’s a month of slow production, and there was another slow month before that. I’m just under half way through the novel after 3 months which is a bit over half the rate I’d hoped for and a third of my max production rate. It’s very frustrating.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog May 1 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)