So, the last few months have been very strange for me in a way that is fairly common in the world of F&SF. I've been writing seriously for about sixteen years and selling professionally for nine. I've been working with professionals in writers groups for eight, and with book editors through an agent for six. I know a lot of people in the publishing world. However, as far as the book reading world is concerned I really first appeared three-and-a-half months ago with my very first novel. That's a reasonable way to look at things and I still find it stunningly cool, but it's also utterly surreal.
Reviews in particular are a wholly odd experience—and let me say for the record that I've been incredibly lucky on the review front just to have so many reviewers paying serious attention to a debut author. But it's still deeply strange for me to read comments about my "first" book, when for me it's number four. I expect that will be compounded next year when my "second" (ninth) sees print.
My friend Mike is a reviewer and science fiction scholar and he talks about how often he's seen the phenomena of writers who've been in the trenches for a decade or more being suddenly talked about as an overnight success. I don't think my modest debut rises to that level of surreality, but it's certainly a close cousin.
That's one of the things that makes this blog and talking on panels an interesting experience too. I tend to speak from the point of view of someone who's got about a 1,500,000 words of extant fiction, but I really only have the publishing credibility of about 200,000 of those words. I do also have 400+ rejects to my name, dating back to 1990, which is when I first started interacting with the professional publishing world. Basically I feel like a hoary old veteran of the industry, but for all intents and purposes I'm a wet behind the ears newbie.
It's all good, and cool and weird and wonderful at the same time. And I'd love to hear any thoughts any of y'all have on the subject.
So, fire away. Tips? Comments? Flames?
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8 comments:
I've thought about that, too. I've talked on my blog before about how similar acting and writing are. An actor will go to three auditions a week for years, get a few commercials, maybe do a straight-to-video or a B-horror movie, then when they finally, after five or eight or ten years of hard work, they land a hit television show and blammo! They're an overnight success. Same with writers, as you've demonstrated above.
Neil Gaiman talks about this same problem in the interview I did with him for Science Fiction Chronicle. He said he was considered an "overnight sensation" AFTER all his comic book work, no less.
I'd love to have been an overnight sensation. It would save all this bloody work!
Now, I don't have the same publishing record as you; my work was mostly manuals, study guides and reports, with the odd play (it was a very odd play) and occasional article on swordfighting thrown in, so I guess I am something of an overnight sensation in the fiction world, if you discount the fifteen years between my first manual and this first published book (and small press at that).
Who knows, maybe I'll write a screenplay and become an overnight success at that in another 15 years ;).
Kelly-I'm with you on the acting writing parallels (my degree's theater) though I do have to say that having worked in both worlds that I much prefer publishing. It's a saner profession. No...really! Scary, huh?
Lyda-yeah, it's deeply weird and yet completely normal for the profession. I'd love to have a panel discussion on that at a con sometime, or maybe a living room. The problem would be talking about it in a way that doesn't come off as egotistical or clueless. I know there's a huge amount of luck involved and that it's a problem that a lot of people really want to have. How do you talk about these issues in a way that is sensitive and useful to the people who aren't there yet?
Erik, I'd love to have been an overnight sensation. It would save all this bloody work! I hear that. At the same time, I really don't think it would have been good for me as a writer to have sold my real first novel. It wasn't bad, and I'd like to bring it up to current standard and sell it because I love the story, but man I learned so much by having to keep going back and making each one better if I wanted to get anywhere. I'm writing a YA right now that I really love, I think it's easily the best thing I've ever done. Would I have gotten to a place where I could right it without the time wandering in the wilderness? I just don't know. Maybe even more importantly, I know that as much as I love this one, I can and will learn to do better if I keep trying to push beyond current bounds. And I definitely think that attitude would have been hurt if I'd started selling right off the bat.
Maybe a good place to suggest a panel like this would be WisCON, since there's a track somewhat devoted to mid-career writers.
Kelly Y:
Theater, huh? Cool. I sort of wanted to major in theater in college but my poverty angst prevented it. Same with English--it would have been a cool major but we all know how much money writers make. Now, a professor, on the other hand ...
Sometimes I get the urge to take acting lessons. Mostly as a hobby, really, but I can't help but think it would help my writing to a certain degree.
This topic would make a good panel at Wiscon. Career planning is always good for us newbies.
If you do such a panel at Wiscon I'll be there. :-)
I think this overnight success thing really does a disservice to new writers because they get discouraged if their first work doesn't sell, not knowing that MOST writers have early work that doesn't sell.
Okay, when WisCon starts asking for programming ideas I'll see if I can find a pithy title and toss it in the mix.
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