What to do, what to do

[fringekitty]

My distant and virtual friends: anyone up at this hour?

I suppose those half a world a way are, but here it isn't yet four in the morning. I'm not sure how many nights I've had insomnia, but I'm up once again writing because I feel I'm at least doing something

Comments

[theheretic]

I was a professional writer. I was also a semi-pro/amateur novellist and fiction author (short stories and novels). Nowadays its much easier to publish and maybe even get paid. Its much harder to get your work distributed so the typical compulsive book buyers can snag one on the shelves. That's more work than I care to bother with, getting hard copies in stores. Anyway, if you want to be a pro author, write something in a trendy genre that's not completely overwhelmned by others' and use iUniverse or something like it to publish via print on demand. That's the big advantage of today over 20 years ago. Writing fiction is also decent therapy if you're traumatized, since you can put the bad stuff into metaphor and get it out that way. I mostly got out of fiction and into non-fiction, particularly peak oil issues, op-ed pieces and I think my own pinnacle is I'm a frequent contributor to survivalblog under one of my old pen-names and I've been quoted by the BBC and NY Times and Wall Street Journal, which makes me feel good. Its not money,

[fringekitty]

Thanks for the tips!

Stories where the character is just one of many, with their decisions being just as unimportant as anyone else, that's much more interesting.

Do you have any particular stories in mind?

I really enjoy character interaction and dialogue. Most of my favorite literary works are driven by interaction rather than just action.

[theheretic]

Nearly all scifi and fantasy stories are ones where the main character has to make a decision or commit an action that saves or dooms the world. This is what I call "basic paranoia", the idea that you're really important to the universe. I hate that conceit, and it is part of the reason I write genre busters because I don't want my main character or my ensemble casts to be the ones deciding the shape of the universe, essentially. I think its pompous and childish. I've written a few novels where the characters are temp workers, doing temp jobs and largely poor. Things don't always go their way. They don't get stronger and stronger. They just survive, sorta like real people. I got good compliments on this because its such a refreshing approach to scifi, making it like a setting you can actually picture living in instead of comic book adaptation. I suppose you could say I'm anti-apocalyptic. Its not the end of the universe and my character isn't that important. I find this kind of writing to be the most healthy because you can create