February 6, 2013 – 12:50 pm
I have met a great many people who claim they want to be writers, but who don’t act like it. I have also met more than one professional writer who claims to want to quit his/her day job and go full-time as a writer, but who doesn’t act like it. And I’ve even met a [...]
November 21, 2012 – 9:19 am
One of the persistent pieces of advice given to new and would-be writers is “Don’t talk about your work until it’s finished!” Some folks get incredibly passionate about it, running on for pages in their how-to-write manuals and blogs, or shouting and waving their arms if they’re talking to you face-to-face. There are a lot [...]
October 31, 2012 – 6:03 am
Motivation, according to my trusty Oxford American Dictionary, is “that which induces a person to act a certain way.” I like that definition a lot better than some of the others I ran across, including “inspiration,” “the desire to do something,” and “enthusiasm,” among others. The reason I like that definition better is because it [...]
September 19, 2012 – 6:47 am
Next week, I’m leaving on a 2-1/2 week road trip with my father. It’s not really a vacation – I’m guest of honor at Conjecture in San Diego Oct 5-7 – but Dad and I decided to take the extra time to drive out from Chicago and stop to see things and maybe visit some family [...]
September 2, 2012 – 2:50 pm
I’ve had house guests for the past five days (my cousin stayed with me; my Dad stayed with my sister), and in the process of doing all the show-the-out-of-town-family-around stuff, doing the blog got kind of behind. Which is why I’m late and a bit disconnected with this. Yesterday, we went to the State Fair. [...]
August 12, 2012 – 10:26 am
So this week has been crazy, yes, but it’s the last two days in particular that really did me in. Saturday in particular. It went something like this: Wednesday Me: Cazaril, that’s about six too many hairballs. I’m calling the carpet cleaners. Cazaril: Hmmm? Did you know there’s a bird outside this window? [...]
First off, I am pleased to say that the three Kate and Cecy books will be going live as e-books on May 22. Stephanie Burgis did a lovely blog post on them. Which means that all of the backlist except the Enchanted Forest books are now available in nice, legal ebooks, one way or another [...]
Ask a writer what it is they want to do with their story, and something like eight out of ten will start by giving you a description of the plot. Ask again, push a little harder, and 99% of them will eventually come up with “I want to write a really good book.” Unfortunately, there [...]
It looks as if we have successfully migrated the blog and web site to the new servers, knock wood. I’m afraid a couple of comments got lost in the switchover, sorry. The whole process was a whole lot more involved than I’d expected, and I wasn’t even the one doing most of the work! Basically, [...]
So after all these business posts, people wanted me to write about retiring. I’m not surprised; it was kind of exhausting to think about doing all that stuff. In any case, this is the retirement-for-writers post. The very first question is: what does retirement mean to you, as a writer? Writing isn’t quite the same [...]
January 4, 2012 – 6:18 am
First off, thanks to everyone who commiserated about the computer crash. I now have all my critical data back (including my in-process Skyrim game! Very important, right up there with the email archives, the address book, and the calendar. Books? Those were never the problem; I’m paranoid about backing up work-in-process, finished work, copyedited versions…) [...]
December 25, 2011 – 6:18 am
Merry Christmas (or midwinter holiday of your choice), everybody! I’m mostly taking the day off, but I couldn’t leave you with nothing at all on the blog, so I thought I would give you some links. As some of you may recall, back in September I had a three-day visit from a team of video [...]
December 7, 2011 – 6:34 am
A while back, I did a post on electronic publishing in general, in which I stated that I didn’t know much, but nobody else does, either, yet. In the interim, I’ve learned a bit more, and I thought this would be a good time to share, because next week, the five Lyra books are being [...]
November 23, 2011 – 6:16 am
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the U.S., which is generally considered a family day, so I thought I’d talk about family and writing this time. One way or another, family is something every writer has to deal with, and it’s never nice and clean-cut. Family can be supportive, or they can be a big obstacle, and [...]
October 16, 2011 – 10:13 am
When people ask me when I knew I wanted to be a writer, I always tell them that I never did want to be a writer. I wanted to write. Being a writer was something that happened by accident. Recently someone asked me what I meant. Surely, if you want to write, that kind of [...]
October 9, 2011 – 6:18 am
Back in the day, on Usenet, I had a little lecture that I posted periodically, whenever too many folks seemed to be bemoaning the horribleness of the submission process so much that they were losing sight of the actual job of submitting. (Make no mistake; the submission process is horrible and lengthy and depressing, but [...]
October 5, 2011 – 6:58 am
The problem with sequels is that the writing and publishing process gives readers too much time to think. Let me unpack that a little. It takes me one to two years to write a novel, and this is fairly typical of most of the professional writers I know. Yes, there are folks who work faster [...]
September 18, 2011 – 6:15 am
How did you know that you wanted to be a writer? I didn’t. I never, ever wanted to “be a writer.” I wanted to write. I wanted to tell stories. I wanted to get these blasted characters out of my head and nailed down on paper so I wouldn’t have to keep thinking about them. [...]
September 14, 2011 – 6:57 am
When you look at the arts, there are some that clearly, obviously require the talents of multiple people to produce. Movies, for instance, need not only writers but actors, camera operators, prop and costume people, and on and on – last time I went to one, the credits rolled on for nearly five minutes. At [...]
A couple of posts back, nct2 asked what Other Helpful Stuff a writer could do – besides writing, taking classes, or learning new skills – to improve their work. I blinked at that a couple of times, because my very first reaction was “Learn to touch-type,” and I wasn’t at all sure that would be [...]
One of the things 4th Street Fantasy Con did this year was a workshop on writers’ support systems, which I participated in. I did a lot of thinking about the topic, and it occurred to me that most of my blog readers probably weren’t there and could use the information (and besides, it means I [...]
In the two years and a bit that I’ve been producing this blog, I’ve developed a rule of thumb that goes “Any time three people ask me more or less the same question in the same week, it’s probably time to do a post on the topic.” Last weekend, as I said, I was at [...]
Writing is one of the few occupations that aren’t tied to a particular place and time. It’s something that you can do anywhere, any time, if you want to. So I used to find it odd to hear so many writers talk about their desks and offices (and I thought it was especially odd that [...]
Once again, I am late on a book. This time, it’s a combination of things: first off, I didn’t count on how much time handling my Dad’s taxes would take this year; second off, I didn’t count on yet another family crisis involving meeting with lawyers and bankers and what-not cropping up at more or [...]
Writing is a profession with a very long lead time. For the majority of writers, writing a novel takes somewhere between six months and two years (there are, of course, folks who can do it faster or who require even more time, but they’re outliers). Then you have a wait for editorial revisions, and then [...]
Back when I was just out of college, I remember laughing at one of my friends who was complaining about the effects of her promotion on her budget. “Sure, I get more money now,” she said. “But I only get it every two weeks, not every Friday! It’s really hard to remember not to spend [...]
First things first: a bit over two weeks ago, our own Michelle Wood emailed me that she’s done a wonderful video trailer for the Frontier Magic series. I’ve been planning to put a link to it on the website, but I’m in the downhill rush to finish the book and updating the web page is [...]
As any devoted Heinlein fan knows, TANSTAAFL stands for There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. It’s one of those obvious truths about the world, like Murphy’s Law, that ought to go without saying, yet people seem to need to be reminded of it over and over. Something in the human psyche really wants [...]
Nearly everyone, these days, can name a lot of obvious advantages brought on by the establishment of the Internet. Pre-Internet, for instance, most writers only ever saw the small selection of their readers who came to autographings and readings; now, any reader with Internet access and ten minutes of free time can drop their favorite author [...]
April 15 is coming up fast, and for anyone who made money writing, it tends to be rather traumatic. No matter how much you set aside from your payments, it never seems to be enough (for those of us in the U.S., that 15% Social Security payment is a perennial killer). And of course they [...]
One of the things that happens when you write books that are marketed as Young Adult or childrens is, you get letters from kids who have been assigned to write them in class. It’s really obvious, for two reasons: first, the number of letters drops off markedly during the summer months, and second, the class [...]
Disasters bring out the best in a lot of people. We see the pictures on TV or the web, and want to help; it’s a natural, human thing. Writers are human; we have those same reactions. We pull out our credit cards and donate to the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders and other organizations. [...]
February 27, 2011 – 6:21 am
Sooner or later, everyone gets stressed, and stress affects everybody’s writing, one way or another. There are a few folks whose writing is their escape from stress, who write more when they get more stressed and less when they get happy, but that doesn’t seem to be all that common among published writers (probably because [...]
February 23, 2011 – 6:05 am
The Twin Cities are currently cleaning up after the…fourth or fifth? I forget…big storm of the season. Somewhere between a foot and a half and two feet of snow fell from Sunday afternoon to Monday evening, on top of the more-than-a-normal-winter’s-worth that we’d already had by the end of January. The snow mountains at the [...]
January 2, 2011 – 6:50 am
I think I was back in high school when I first started setting goals for myself on a regular basis. I didn’t start saving copies of them until I was out of college, though, and I rather regret that. At this point in my life, looking back over 35+ years of goals is really interesting. [...]
October 27, 2010 – 6:20 am
November approaches, and with it comes National Novel Writing Month, a “writing event” that involves people all over the world trying to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch during the month of November. Along with NaNoWriMo comes, inevitably, a flock of earnest would-be writers asking whether or not they should participate (and, occasionally, whether [...]
October 17, 2010 – 9:33 pm
One of the questions I get asked a lot is “how did you decide to be a writer?” And the short answer is, I didn’t. Oh, I’ve been writing since I started my first (unfinished, unpublishable) novel in seventh grade, but it was always about writing, not about being a writer. Part of that was [...]
September 19, 2010 – 6:55 pm
Last Wednesday, I finished reviewing the copy-edit of Across the Great Barrier, which was my last chance to make any major changes to the book. I’ll get another look at it when the galleys/page proofs come, but barring some totally egregious error that’s slipped past every single person who’s gone over the ms. thus far, [...]
September 5, 2010 – 6:43 am
There’s an old story about time management and prioritizing that I dearly love, not least because I’ve seen it repurposed several times. The story, which I’m sure many of you are familiar with already, is the one about the professor who walks into class with a large jar. He proceeds to fill it with big [...]
Barely over a week ago, I turned in the first draft of Circuit Rider, after a major death-march push to get the thing done somewhere within shouting distance of deadline. The plan was to spend a couple of weeks taking care of everything that got put off to finish the book (laundry, dishes, yardwork, finances), [...]
Most people just read books. That is, they absorb the information, or enjoy the plot and characters, without thinking too much about how and why they work. It’s a lot like watching a play, or a magic show. It’s supposed to be relaxing, so sit back and enjoy. Reading like a writer is more like [...]
Finished up the last chapter of Circuit Magician yesterday around noon; spent the rest of the afternoon doing final clean-up of assorted things that had been tagged to fix but somehow hadn’t gotten fixed yet, and sent it off. This morning, I had notes from my editor and agent saying they received it, so the [...]
Thanks to some last-minute schedule changes and cancellations, I am now very confident that the first draft of Circuit Magician will be finished by late this week, even if I don’t quite make the June 1 deadline. Since I’ve already cleared that with my editor, this will work out fine. Sooner would be better, though. [...]
One major plot point to go, and about a week and a half to do it in. I got lucky on the deadline – my editor is on vacation, and while he will be back June 1, he’ll be spending his first few days catching up. So as long as I get the ms. to [...]
The first thing you need to know about getting published is that the process is best described as interminably long stretches of boredom and anxiety, punctuated by moments of panic and frantic activity. And this applies to the whole process, not just the submission part. Most people who want to be professionally published figure out [...]
OK, I said I’d post updates on how things are going. This week wasn’t bad, but everything is taking longer than I think it should (longer in the more-words-and-scenes sense, rather than longer in the more-time-to-write-one-scene sense). In one way, this is good; it means there’s lots of juice in this story. In another way, [...]
Where are your best places to write? I can write pretty much anywhere; I learned that trick when I was still working and had very limited time in which to write. (“A writer with only two hours a day can write in the back of an open truck on the Interstate.” – Gene Wolfe) Most [...]
Circuit Magician (the tentative title of the sequel to Thirteenth Child) has been giving me fits for months…years, if the truth be told. Many of the problems have been external (I didn’t have any control over when Mom had her stroke), but it’s also just a tough book to do. The middle of a story [...]
I am home again after another four-day trip to Chicago to get my Dad’s taxes signed and meet with the lawyer about family business stuff. I am more than a little chuffed, because this is the first time in at least six years that Dad hasn’t needed to file an extension. (You all did notice [...]
Getting good comments on a work-in-process is hard. In part, this is because a) many writers think that only other writers can/will provide useful criticism, b) most people are not writers, and c) people may be very good writers and still be very bad at providing critique. a) and b) mean that many writers limit their [...]
March 30, 2010 – 10:28 am
Last Saturday there was a meeting of the local Mythopoeic Society, at which they planned to discuss Thirteenth Child. They very kindly asked me to attend, and spent considerable time arranging to have the meeting on a date when I was sure I could make it. And I spaced it. I have a list of excuses [...]
People make time for the things they love. That is why I am always a bit skeptical at first when people tell me that they can’t write because they have a day job…especially when their day job is a relatively non-demanding 40 hours per week. People have to make time for the things they love, [...]
February 3, 2010 – 10:34 pm
I just (and I mean just, as in, haven’t unpacked the suitcase yet) got back from Chicago. The planned five-day trip turned into six (I should have known better than to schedule the meeting with the lawyer for the last day), but the estate tax return is now signed and with the lawyer to file, [...]
December 29, 2009 – 11:25 am
I flew down to Alabama for the Big Family Christmas this year. That meant I also flew back the day after Christmas. Which was also the day after some idiot tried to blow up a plane over Detroit. My sister and I were lucky – the new “security precautions” didn’t get put into place until [...]
December 7, 2009 – 5:50 pm
I am grumpy. It’s partly my own fault, and partly not (at least, I think it isn’t). The part that I think is not my fault has to do with the refusal of my blogging software to upload pictures, despite several hours of trying different formats with the supposedly-easy-built-in-uploader. The software finds the right file, [...]
November 29, 2009 – 1:32 pm
I had brunch this morning with my friend Rosemary, who is about as crazy as I am but on just a different enough axis that we stimulate each other to new heights of silliness, rather than bogging down because we’ve each had exactly the same idea and can’t build on it. Anyway, Rosemary is one [...]
October 10, 2009 – 8:46 pm
One of the things nobody ever mentioned to me when I was getting started as a writer was that if I ever got to be a full-time professional, I was going to be, in essence, a self-employed businessperson, with all the troubles and responsibilities (assorted taxes, health insurance, FICA, record-keeping) that go along with running [...]
October 7, 2009 – 9:19 am
So I spent last week in bed with something that wasn’t quite the H1N1 thing but had ALL the nasty symptoms (reading between the lines of what my doctor told me, this means I can STILL CATCH the stupid flu and end up going through all this AGAIN). All better, but I’m now faced with catching [...]
August 30, 2009 – 11:11 am
In the comments on the last post, S.A. Cox said “Historically, however, with both writing and teaching, one of the main keys to my development has been trusting my instincts about what is working and what isn’t, and then working like a dog at what isn’t.” My experience with trusting my instincts has been good; [...]
Rain is a good thing, at least right here, right now. We’ve been badly in need of it…and we finally got some this weekend. It’s still wet and drippy and dark out, which means that a) I don’t have to do any yard work today, and b) the cats are curled up in their favorite [...]
The new modem is now working, but the wireless still isn’t. I probably should have expected it-it’s one of those corollaries of Murphy’s Law: The week before you leave home on a trip, everything that can go wrong will. But I am going to ignore my chore list today, because the weather is beautiful. If [...]
Yesterday morning, my modem died the ultimate death. Dead modems turn out to be dreadfully hard to diagnose, or at least, that’s what I conclude after spending two hours on the phone to tech support trying to determine why my Internet connection was unstable. Add another hour to run out and get a new one [...]
Write. No, really, that’s it. It’s kind of a definitional thing. What you have to be in order to be a writer is, you have to be someone who writes. Period. You don’t have to be nice; you don’t have to be educated; you don’t have to follow a bunch of rules; you don’t even [...]