hey, weren't you supposed to be writing a novel?
Now that I'm more visibly writing online again, I'm starting to get the 'So, about that whole writing career thing?' question with more frequency. To save myself having to explain it individually, I present
I used to want to have a Standard Skiffy Author Career. I was on that path for a while: published some short stories, got some nominations and awards, networked with other writers, had editors and agents inquiring about a future novel. There was a glorious time in my early twenties when I was a Popular Young Prodigy Of Whom Great Things Were Expected, at the heart of a community of writer friends.
In the mid-nineties, however, my attention fragmented. This wacky new thing called the Web came along, which led me, separately, to a) a career in design, and b) nonfiction writing in the form of personal essays - both developments that were really good for me, on balance. I also had a couple of Bad Relationship Experiences with other people in the internecine SF community, which helped to take the bloom off that particular rose.
Since then I've been basically living my life as seems best at the time, never questioning the idea that 'someday' I will return the whole novel-career-thing to the front burner. Until recently I realized that ... gosh, I don't actually want that Standard Skiffy Author Career anymore.
I do still have one YA novel that (unless I die young) I will definitely write. There's another, far grander SF novel that I really ought to write, but don't know if I can. Beyond that, I am not compelled.
There are a lot of reasons for this. One is that, having run a small press, I now know too much about how the industry works - or doesn't. I won't go into a long rant here, but suffice it to say that publishing is uniquely and badly broken, and that frustrates me.
Two is that I seem to have become prematurely crotchety where fiction is concerned; it's a rare book now that I can stand to start, much less finish. I am irritated by even tiny flaws, and few stories captivate or inspire me the way most things did fifteen or twenty years ago.
Three, I really hated the fall from Popular Young Prodigy to persona non grata. When I was on the approved track, I got lots of attention and lapped it all up. But as soon as I deviated - as soon as I no longer had a good answer to the 'What are you writing now?' question - I discovered that (except in rare individual cases) that attention was all superficial. Success or happiness in any other area of my life was worthless; only progress along the Career Author Track was worthy. So I fell away from the 'community', and focused on people whose friendship wasn't dependent upon regular published output.
Four: I am a feedback junkie. I write to communicate, and I find that to be much more satisfying online than off. Similarly, I prefer short form, if only because I am too impatient to spend a couple of years on a single work and then wait a couple more for it to (maybe) sell and make it into print.
And five ... there are just too many other things I want to do. Ironically, this is part of why I gravitated to the idea of writing to begin with; in high school I was fascinated by things as disparate as theater and genetics, and wanted some way of incorporating all of them into my 'job'. In the years I haven't been writing novels I've been doing a lot of other things, large and small, and ... I feel the richer for it. Building a writing career requires a much more singleminded dedication than I'm generally willing to adopt. I don't want to step on that treadmill.
The one factor that might sway my path is Jak. We've talked about writing a novel together, and if things line up so that we can both commit to it at the same time, it might even happen. Bizarrely, we are very well-matched for this. We know we work well together (having done it for years at a time already without exploding), and our respective writing strengths tend to compensate nicely for each other's weaknesses (which we can admit with a refreshing lack of ego-driven insecurity).
So there you go. Yes, I'll probably write at least one shortish novel someday, but breath-holding is not advised. Meanwhile, I will continue to experiment with other projects, some of which will be writing-based.
I used to want to have a Standard Skiffy Author Career. I was on that path for a while: published some short stories, got some nominations and awards, networked with other writers, had editors and agents inquiring about a future novel. There was a glorious time in my early twenties when I was a Popular Young Prodigy Of Whom Great Things Were Expected, at the heart of a community of writer friends.
In the mid-nineties, however, my attention fragmented. This wacky new thing called the Web came along, which led me, separately, to a) a career in design, and b) nonfiction writing in the form of personal essays - both developments that were really good for me, on balance. I also had a couple of Bad Relationship Experiences with other people in the internecine SF community, which helped to take the bloom off that particular rose.
Since then I've been basically living my life as seems best at the time, never questioning the idea that 'someday' I will return the whole novel-career-thing to the front burner. Until recently I realized that ... gosh, I don't actually want that Standard Skiffy Author Career anymore.
I do still have one YA novel that (unless I die young) I will definitely write. There's another, far grander SF novel that I really ought to write, but don't know if I can. Beyond that, I am not compelled.
There are a lot of reasons for this. One is that, having run a small press, I now know too much about how the industry works - or doesn't. I won't go into a long rant here, but suffice it to say that publishing is uniquely and badly broken, and that frustrates me.
Two is that I seem to have become prematurely crotchety where fiction is concerned; it's a rare book now that I can stand to start, much less finish. I am irritated by even tiny flaws, and few stories captivate or inspire me the way most things did fifteen or twenty years ago.
Three, I really hated the fall from Popular Young Prodigy to persona non grata. When I was on the approved track, I got lots of attention and lapped it all up. But as soon as I deviated - as soon as I no longer had a good answer to the 'What are you writing now?' question - I discovered that (except in rare individual cases) that attention was all superficial. Success or happiness in any other area of my life was worthless; only progress along the Career Author Track was worthy. So I fell away from the 'community', and focused on people whose friendship wasn't dependent upon regular published output.
Four: I am a feedback junkie. I write to communicate, and I find that to be much more satisfying online than off. Similarly, I prefer short form, if only because I am too impatient to spend a couple of years on a single work and then wait a couple more for it to (maybe) sell and make it into print.
And five ... there are just too many other things I want to do. Ironically, this is part of why I gravitated to the idea of writing to begin with; in high school I was fascinated by things as disparate as theater and genetics, and wanted some way of incorporating all of them into my 'job'. In the years I haven't been writing novels I've been doing a lot of other things, large and small, and ... I feel the richer for it. Building a writing career requires a much more singleminded dedication than I'm generally willing to adopt. I don't want to step on that treadmill.
The one factor that might sway my path is Jak. We've talked about writing a novel together, and if things line up so that we can both commit to it at the same time, it might even happen. Bizarrely, we are very well-matched for this. We know we work well together (having done it for years at a time already without exploding), and our respective writing strengths tend to compensate nicely for each other's weaknesses (which we can admit with a refreshing lack of ego-driven insecurity).
So there you go. Yes, I'll probably write at least one shortish novel someday, but breath-holding is not advised. Meanwhile, I will continue to experiment with other projects, some of which will be writing-based.