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| Damn, is that romantic approach so full of shit... |
Ah, the
joys of writing! Sitting down at a vintage typewriter, as the camera pans out
to show your old, dusty room, bookshelves crammed with literary heroes as the
rain and the wind rattle your windows and the electrical bills pile up under
the door. The infinite joys of seeing your name in print; a publication among
your chosen genre’s greats! A movie deal, just around the corner! Baying
fangirls (or fanboys) clustered around your coffee shop! Sounds good, doesn’t
it? Except it’s not, not really…
1. Writing is a job.
This might
seem as a very obvious, almost naïve remark: yes, writing (possibly) pays the
rent, but for most people, the idea of siting at their keyboard and churning
out worlds is wreathed in a romantic little halo. Perhaps some of you might think
that writing is simply a matter of talent; others might even consider it a
byproduct of sheer luck and lonely Friday afternoons, as if J.K. Rowling cameup with Harry Potter halfway through a cucumber sandwich.
| Stephen King is reported to have come up with the Dark Tower halfway through choking on a footlong subway. |
There is a distinct
possibility that many of you reading this article think that all it takes is
ONE big hit of a novel and you’re set
for life.
The sad
truth of the matter is this: talent counts for little, luck plays a major part
and nobody has ever made a name-or a fortune- for themselves by writing just a
single novel (well, except for Koushun Takami, author of battle Royale, but he
was already a distinguished journalist in Japan at the time). To put it simply,
nobody ever lived off their job by doing a single great thing and those that
did, well, they failed a hundred thousand times before they got it right. But
to fail that much, you need to try. To try, you need to change your perceptions
and see writing as work. Not so much as making up the specifics of the next
great Amazon bestseller, as much as like unclogging an s-bend, or fixing
someone’s car. Whether it is going to be a 9-5 gig or a thing you do in between
your job and your free time is up to you. But words need to be set on blank
.doc files, worlds need to be set up in your head, characters must be laid out,
put together and watched carefully, as they go about their business and then
have the story adjusted around their actions. This might sound artsy and
air-headed but it’s really not, not if you care about the quality of your work.
After all, only way to get paid for a job is if you do it well. And speaking of
getting paid…
2. As far as jobs go, writing is a terrible
career choice.
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| A pretty accurate summation of an aspiring writer's business plan. |
I hope youlike being paid a pittance, because this is going to be a pretty accurate
description of your earnings during your first steps at writing for a living.
Be prepared to pore over your work for hours, days, even months, even as you
scan any possible literary markets to send out your work, so it can be
evaluated and either a) ignored b) ripped to shreds by the scrutiny of editors
or c) accepted, against your expectations.
Writing
fictions pays very little these days. The great magazine markets of science
fiction and horror (Strange Horizons and Nightmare Magazine spring to mind,
respectively) are the best-paying magazines at the time of this articles’
writing (with very few exceptions that occasionally pop-up, in the form of
anniversary editions or all-star anthologies). At best, your work will be
bought by a publisher at 5 cents a word for a minimum of 2 thousand words.
That’s 100 dollars!
Woo-hoo,
mister! I got me 100 bucks for a days’ work! Some of you might say. Oh, really?
You actually think that magazines which have hosted the likes of Paolo
Bacigalupi, Kij Johnson and Brian Keene are just going to settle for your
piece? What makes you so certain? Is it your fresh, innovative look on tired
tropes? Is it your verbose, poignant writing style?
In the
interest of lightening up the mood, here is what happens in case your work is
accepted: you wait for 3-6 months for the editing process to be done, then you
wait some more, then you get paid and then you get your name on the cover or
the contents section. In the meantime, you have bills to pay! However will you
keep up with those? Which brings me to my next point:
3. If you are reading this, you probably aren’t
a trust-fund dilettante.
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| Why yes, my parents ARE dead. |
It’s
possible that you are at the age of 19-27, perhaps thinking that you will have
made a name for yourself in three years’ time, five tops. Perhaps you think you
could postpone looking for a day job, or if you are particularly deluded, that
you don’t need to get one. ‘This next one’s gonna be a hit’ you are probably
telling yourself: ‘Just let me get my name out there and I can get a movie deal
within the year!’
The sad truth
however, is that this isn’t going to happen. Not that you aren’t good enough,
it’s just that these things take time. The money that you will get (when and if
you get paid) will not be enough to allow you to make a living, unless you
enjoy living off fast-food dollar deals and hogging free WiFi for the next half
decade. And if this is your definition of heaven, then you are going to be sick
of it pretty damn soon.
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| If not, then behold your main source of nourishment with awe. |
Not
quitting your day job and trying to keep up your writing should be your top
priority. As of this moment, the Internet is flooded with people who think the
same thing you do, who make up stories and hope that one day they will be
recognized for their work in their chosen genre and let’s face it: very few of
them will achieve even some moderate fame. This is not because of a lack of
quality, however; there are brilliant new authors out there, who churn out gold
every chance they get. This is a matter of quantity. There is so much fiction
out there, that to make yourself known, to even have a chance to be noticed,
your only option is to produce material that will reach as many professionals
as possible or at the very least, allow you to build an audience. But the only
way to reach an audience is to…
4. Promote yourself stupid.
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| Look everybody! I am trying to write shit for a living! |
Chances
are, if you are reading this article, that you do not have a publishing house
representative pitching your book to Barnes & Noble. Furthermore, you are
probably on the verge of cracking your keyboard in half. Some of you might just
want to trash their entire story folder or are sick and tired of staring at
their blog visit counter stuck at 5 thousand views.
The only
way for aspiring writers to make their work known is by advertising themselves.
This can happen through a number of ways, though simply going around and telling
people that you write fiction might do the trick, for starters. Show off a
publication (no matter how small). Tell people you know. Post your literary
achievements someplace, anyplace. Set up a publication CV on the internet and
shout your newest acceptance from the rooftops!
The time of
the reclusive madman writer who lives off mooching from his friends is long
since gone. The short story markets are beyond saturated and as of this moment,
Amazon’s self-published Kindle Books outnumber their paperbacks almost 2 to
one. Everyone can be a writer these days and to you, it might seem like
everyone is.
By reaching
out people you can learn exactly what the audience wants and adapt your work to
it. By talking to professionals (or established writers) and talking shop with
them instead of drooling all over their work, you can learn how the markets are
at the moment and plan your next move. None of those are surefire ways to
success, of course. But they are a constructive, useful way to get your name out
there and let people know that you want to make stuff up for a living.
Got that?
Jotting it down right now? Acting the social butterfly? That’s nice, because
it’s about time you knew that…
5. Getting Published isn’t everything.
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| And then keep fucking doing it forever. |
Hell,
getting published isn’t anything, these
days. There are tons of exposure markets that will be more than glad to put up
your story online just so other people can read it. Getting your work published
on a paying market will only get you
so far, even. It’s going to perhaps be six months, maybe a year, before your
bragging rights run out and then you’re going to have to do this again, except
it won’t be as important or interesting as that last time.
Matter of
fact, publications appear to be governed by a sort of reverse law of thermodynamics,
where the more of them you have, the less potent they become before finally
fading into your personal background noise (unless you get published on
Clarkesworld or something. Now that’s always pretty boss). If you are young and
new to this, creative writing teachers and fellow aspiring writers have
probably convinced you that yes, getting your name on a cover is all it stakes.
They are wrong.
Getting your name on a cover means you’re adequate, that you did well enough to get a special mention. But
it’s not that spot on the front of the magazine that’s gonna make you, even if
you appear alongside Michael reznik or Ken Liu. Instead, after the initial
bliss of this joyous event subsides, you should tell yourself…
6. “So you got paid. Now do it again!”
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| Yes, RIGHT FUCKING NOW! |
Let’s be
honest here: if an editor deemed your work fit to actually pay you money for it, then that means that you
are getting somewhere. Your hard work’s paid off and now you are enjoying the
fruits of your labour. But then the landlord kncks on your door and swipes them
away with a ‘Yoink!’ or you just hide them under the mattress and then you get
that itch…
That
yearning, that fire in your belly…
Because
that is the exact point where it gets worse. You need to do this again, this
time perhaps using your credentials topromote yourself to a market of a
higher-claiber and perhaps appear next to the professionals once again. And
this, in many ways, might be harder than before. Crushing insecurity aside,
this is the point where the chaff is separated from the wheat. Upping your game
and maintaining a steady flow of publications in the new spectrum that you have
just reached. Of course, reaching that summit means that you need to follow the
words of that savant and author, Ray Bradbury…
7. “Accept
rejection and reject acceptance”
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| Aum Shiva |
You
probably already have about a hundred rejection emails in your folder by this
point already, ranging from the automated “The story just didn’t work for us”
to the occasional “Your story was awesome but we’ll pass” to the rare case of
“Hi, I like your story but here’s what’s wrong with it”.
By shifting
your focus to a fully professional market, you are increasing the number of
these rejections, but there is a much higher chance of receiving actual
feedback from professionals, which in turn will help you fix the mistakes you
made in your story, with which you are probably enamored with and will not
easily acknowledge its mistakes. Know this: rejection is a good thing; it
builds character, gives you steel and makes you see what’s wrong with your
style and approach. Acceptance, on the other hand is only a byproduct of this
and should neither be taken for granted or considered the end of your troubles.
If
anything, relying too much on your acceptances will hurt you more than a few more
rejections which might, in turn, give you focus on bettering your work. Then
again, if you are still stuck, you might just need to consider that you must…
8. Try everything and see what sticks.
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| Kitchen Sink erotica? Pfftt way ahead of you, son. |
You might consider
yourself a genre author, at this point; after all, you have a favorite genre
that you work with, you have gotten yourself up there (if only for a fraction
of a second) by the side of the greats and now…now you can’t seem to pull it
off. Probably because you’re so hard set in repeating your last hit, you don’t
even notice how you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. So
maybe you need to try something new, something else.
There are a
ton of genres to consider, from
vanilla fantasy to the dark absurdity of bizzaro, not counting erotica or
dinosaur pornography. Don’t knock any single thing, because by focusing on a
single aspect of writing fiction, you pretty much shut yourself off from
finding your niche. And if it turns out that your first genre wasn’t your pick,
then give it time. Howard Phillips Lovecraft used to write situational comedies
to pay his rent, before his work was recognized.
What? He
died alone and unloved? NEXT SEGMENT!
9. For God’s sake, DON’T WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW.
Also, GET STUFF DONE.
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| Long as you do not promote imperialism and make banana republicas out of nations, that is. |
These are
not two separate bits of advice. As a matter of fact, they are the holy writ of
trying to write fiction for a living. You are a citizen of planet Earth, Solar
System, Milky Way, Universe 1-Gamma. You belong in a world populated with 6.5
billion of you. You have no knowledge of how to construct or operate a
trans-temporal matrix, have little to no grasp on how to perform enchantments
on intelligent swords and you cannot possibly have seen a many-angled
monstrosity, slithering into reality through the dark space beneath your little
sister’s bed.
Nobody
wants to read fiction based on things you know, because none of us know all
that much, as it turns out. Make stuff up, improvise, mumble halfway through
your technojargon but just don’t bore the reader. It’s not originality you are
worried about, not in this day and age, when pretty much everything has been
done at least once. What should worry you is how to not BORE the reader by not
providing him with strange new vistas within and without his characters’ heads,
while at the same time challenging yourself. But to do that, you need to get
all Rocky on your brain and well, you need to eat lightnin’ and crap thunder,
m’boy. And the onlyw ay to do that is by failing by trying, again and again,
over and over until you run out of failure and find just the right voice to
tell your stories.
Now I know
what you’re thinking: why should I do this? This is a terrible idea! The money
is terrible, there’s no dental and don’t get me started on the hours! Why
should I be a writer?
10. Because you can’t be anything else.
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| Also, "Fuck Literature", also by the same author. |
Let’s face
it: you Googled this because you were looking for something to hang on to.
Perhaps you wanted a kind word, or a pat on the back, or you wanted to hear
about how it all gets better. It doesn’t. In the words of Warren Ellis ‘Writers
never stop being writers. They just die’.
But there
are worlds in your head. There are universe with revolving galaxies, populated
with worlds and people and creatures that think and act and speak through you.
There are wonders lurking in every nook and cranny of those worlds, there are
diamonds the size of chicken eggs in the beggar’s baskets. There are creatures
with mouths for faces that slowly replace the world, brick by brick and only
you know about them. There are horrors and there are wonders and only you can
bring them to light.
But it’s
gonna be a rough road before you can give them their voice, with which to speak
into the minds and the imaginations of others. And it’s worth it, every single
step.
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