Author
Nip, it’s entirely covered with NIP!
Is it? I hadn’t notic—is that my paw?
OH WOW
Oh my dog, have you tried this stuff? Are you kidding, I AM this stuff.
Nip, you say? It does smell like it.
Maybe Ima take a little nip nap now…
I have no nip and I cannot stone…
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?
This?
Yes, THAT!
Oh, Laura’s Shade is a jellyfiss…
I knew that. Castle Gaiman cats can all see true shadows.
What’s that down there?
Shiny BEADS and TRINKETS!
The committee for feline domination takes a meeting
I will killz teh chipmunk with mah mind
I needs mah beauty sleep
Well, I needs mah cutie sleep, so there
Waz otter in previous life, sometimes has flashbacks
What? Dis da gluten free shelf, right? I’z 100 percent gluten free
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog June 26 2009, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
John Scalzi is talking about why debut novelists are so often so much older than debut musicians or actors. I commented over there with my own timeline and it seemed worth noting it here too. Please feel free to post your own both here and there.
My novel publishing timeline:
1967 – 1991: Time spent learning to write well enough to write a novel (ages 0—26).
1991: Wrote first complete novel (age 26)
1992–1993: Wrote two more novels, one of which is possibly publishable with rewrite (28)
1993-1998: Wrote a bunch of short stories while trying to sell all three initial novels (31)
1999: Started selling shorts and returned to novels, writing the book that would ultimately sell first (32)
2000: Got agent who started marketing novel (33)
2000-2005: Wrote three more novels, all still looking for publishers (38)
2005: Contract signed for that debut novel (38)
2006: Debut novel published (39)
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog June 24 2009, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
To the tune of KODACHROME, and with apologies to Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Square Enix, I present, CHOCOBO:
When I think back
On all the flans I killed while grinding
It’s a wonder
I leveled up at all
Even though my lack of magic
Has really hurt me
I can ride that bird on down the trail
Chocobo
You’ve got those nice bright feathers
You’re made of the golds of autumn
Makes me think all the world’s a racing day, kwe-eh!
I got me some gysahl greens
I love to ride that crazy bird
So Mama don’t take my chocobo away
If you took all the potions I used
When I was hurting
And poured them together in one pot
I know they’d never bring back
My missing moogle
And everything look worse with eight bit graphics
Chocobo
He’s got those nice bright feathers
That remind us of the golds of autumn
Makes me think all the world’s a racing day, kwe-eh!
I got me some gy-sahl greens
I love to ride that crazy bird
So Mama don’t take my chocobo away
Mama don’t my chocobo awaaaay!
Mama don’t my chocobo awaaaay!
Mama don’t my chocobo awaaaay!
Mama don’t take my chocobo
Mama don’t take my chocobo
Mama don’t my chocobo awaaaay!
Mama don’t take my chocobo
Mama don’t take my chocobo
Mama don’t my chocobo awaaaay!
Mama don’t take my chocobo
(Leave your bird so far from home)
Mama don’t my chocobo awaaaay!
Blob cat is blobing
It is the east and Juliet the sun.
Gaming cats atop their custom chair rig
Helpy cat helpying to make the bed
Lazer cat is in ur closet fryin ur shirtz
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog June 19 2009, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
Why do we want to climb the thumb-monkey? Because the thumb-monkey is there!
You realize that makes no sense, right?
Tell it to the Meglet, she’s the one who thought it was clever.
I stole it from Mallory, sue me…hang on, is that my tail? Gotta go, bye.
Y’all are arguing about quotes when there’s sun to be had? Screw that.
Have you ever really tasted your thumb?
No, but I’ve tasted the iPad and it is DELICIOUS. It tastes of virtual fish.
Seriously? Virtual fish? Mallory? Because it’s there? Y’all are an embarrassment.
Guest cats courtesy of Kim and Jonny,
Well, and as always, Coconut courtesy of Neil Gaiman
Awk, Polly wants a dead mousie, awk!
Sometimes the places the thumb-monkey’s brain goes worries me…
Sometimes?
Mmm, dead mousies…
Help, they turned off my gravity and now I’m floating away!
There is one thing you can do to build your career in this field that will help more than anything else, a secret handshake of the writing biz. You know what it is, though it may not occur to you immediately. Who wants to take a swing at it?
*a hand shoots up*
Write the best story you possibly can, every time?
*sighs*
Okay, two things. But really, writing the best story you can is the ante you need to pay just to get into the game. Without that you don’t even get to play. Anyone else want to guess?
*waits*
I see some hands up and I’m pretty sure some of you know the answer, but since this is a pre-canned essay, I’m going to have to type it myself anyway.
Be professional.
I’m letting that sit out there all alone because it’s really really important. Science fiction and fantasy publishing is a business, and it’s actually a very small one at the professional level. If you were to take every single SFWA eligible writer in the entire world and put them together in one place you’d have a group roughly the size of my wife’s high school student body. Admittedly, it was a large high school, 2,000 plus students, and the group gets bigger when you add in all of the agents and editors, but due to agent-writer and editor-writer ratios that still doesn’t take you outside the large high school range.
Think about that for a moment. A large high school. If you went to a big school think about how fast information moved through the student body. Think about the way that if you did something notable as a freshman it stayed with you for the next four years because everybody knew everybody at least a little. Even if you went to a smaller school (my graduating class was 17) you probably still have a feeling for the scale just from being immersed in pop culture.
So, in terms of community size and reputation building, professional science fiction and fantasy, is basically a large high school. The plus side of this is that everyone knows everyone else, and at its best the community functions like a tight-knit village with lots of mutual support. The minus side of this is that…everyone knows everyone. If you have a public hissy fit (and the internet counts as public) when you get a particularly brutal rejection letter it may hang there in the background of your reputation for the rest of your career.
Fortunately, there’s an easy fix for reputation management. Be professional. Remember that if you want to make writing your career, it’s just that—a career. Remember whenever you post something online about writing that you’re pretty much posting it on the wall labeled “my professional reputation.” Don’t punt deadlines unless you absolutely have to, and then manage the fallout in a professional manner. Tell your editor what’s coming as soon as you can see it. Apologize. If you’ve got a fan base that you interact with online, make sure to keep them as up to date as possible.
Above all, treat people with respect and kindness as much as possible. Personally, I’ve found that this is a good idea in general for managing my life. Your millage may vary there, but it’s really important for your professional interactions because those will have a huge effect on your career over time for a very simple reason. Editors are people, and they buy stories for a lot of reasons.
Primarily, editors buy stories because they believe they will sell, but after you get over that basic hurdle (see writing the best story you possibly can every time above) other factors start to come into play and right up at the top of the list is how they feel about the writer as a professional. Does the author produce a reliable product? Do they do so on time? Is the author easy to work with? Can they be trusted not to do anything that will alienate fans? Etc.
Now, I will admit that if you sell 100,000 hardcovers every time your name appears on a dust jacket you can get away with all kinds of crappy behavior—though many will think the worse of you. But if you’re underselling and so is captain-difficult-to-work-with, I can tell you who is going to be the first cut from the list and it’s not the writer who acts professionally.
So, yes, Virginia, there really is a secret handshake. It’s called professional behavior, or more simply, being polite and meeting your obligations.
(Originally published on SFNovelists June 11 2009, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
Sometimes people ask me where I get my ideas, or why I write. This is one part of the answer.
For a number of reasons I haven’t been writing the past month and a half. First there was the post-book lull compounded by Laura needing a ton of help to get her department moved. Then there was the spring gardening madness which has to get done while the weather and the season are right. Now that that’s all almost done, I’m starting to think about writing again, and boy do I need it.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t shut off the creative part of my brain. Whether I’m writing or not, there’s a never-ending spring of strange in the depths there. It works a bit like a reservoir behind a dam. If I’m writing, the sluice gates are open and the weird wells up and pours into the book. If I’m not writing, the levels just keep getting higher until they start to pour over the top.
The main places they go when they do that are my early morning pre-filters conversation and my dreams. Normally, when I’m writing, I either don’t remember my dreams, or (occasionally) I have dreams about the book. When I start to remember my dreams I know I need to direct the flow back into fiction. Generally I do this at the one remembered vivid dream a night stage. I’m up to three most nights.
For example, last night I had two which stayed with me well into today:
The first was a castle break-in dream in which Laura and I and two large brown bears were sneaking into a castle. For some reason we had decided to pretend that we were there for a bear-polka party—which was why we needed the bears. The rest of the details got written over by the second dream.
The second involved Laura and I sitting on stage chatting with Minnie Mouse as part of a Disney On Ice show. This Minnie did synchronized swimming kind of stuff at the midpoint and she and I got to talking about how the On Ice stars all practiced fencing. About midway through this, John McCain showed up and we got into a verbal tussle which led to arranging a duel—cavalry sabers to first blood. After Arlen Specter arranged the exchange of information for the duel Minnie invited me to train with the On Ice crew for the duel because John McCain was always making their life miserable.
Since I don’t want to spend my night polkaing with bears or fencing with Minnie and McCain, I really need to get back to writing.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog June 9 2009, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)