Five Authors + Five Questions : Success
Writers write. It’s what we do. To go above and beyond that, by answering interview questions they receive in email, is astounding indeed! For this round of Five Authors/Five Questions, I’ve barged into the workdays of Louise Marley, Lavie Tidhar, Lisa Mantchev, E.C. Myers, and Jay Lake.
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Question four: What would a successful year of writing look like to you?
Louise Marley: The perfect year would be a completed novel and perhaps two or three short stories. I don’t think I’ve ever been more prolific than that. A more businesslike writer would probably talk about sales, but I tend to let the publisher worry about those, as there’s only so much I can do about them. I like having a year in which I can look back with pride on my output, and look forward with some confidence as to where that work will appear and how my readership will react to it.
Lavie Tidhar: There are two ways to look at this. One is, can I pay my rent? The other–have I written something I am profoundly happy with?
A good year would answer the second in the positive. A great year would answer both!
Lisa Mantchev: One new book out in hardcover, another in paperback. Starred reviews are nice. My next goal is to hit one of the bestseller lists. When that happens, I am going to get the phoenix tattoo on my back enhanced.
E.C. Myers: Probably like some other writer’s career… But in all seriousness, I would say that “success” comes from writing stories that I’m proud of, that are better than what I’ve written before, that no one else could have written. Sales are wonderful, but they’re largely out of my control. I can’t sell anything if I don’t have good work to submit. If I could publish at least one novel a year and a story or two in magazines that I love, and maybe attract some compliments or recognition along the way, I’m doing pretty well. Someone, probably one of my Clarion West instructors, said that as your career progresses, your idea of success changes. You always want a little more than you have: more sales, more foreign sales, more awards, more popularity, maybe an agent or a movie option. It’s human nature and not necessarily a bad thing, because if you don’t give in to jealousy or despair, it only drives you to work harder, write more, and push yourself to improve and develop your craft. Just like every project is different, every writer is different, and it’s not usually beneficial to compare your progress to someone else’s, especially when you don’t know what they’ve had to do to get where they are.
Jay Lake: Well, last year I held down a full time job, parented a teenager, had liver surgery and six months of chemotherapy, crammed in a fair amount of travel prior to being sidelined medically (including being co-host of the Hugo awards), blogged about 250,000 words, and wrote about 250,000 words of first draft fiction. My original plan, had I not experienced another cancer metastasis, was to write 600,000 words of first draft fiction. So was last year successful? I didn’t meet my original plan goals, but I was still pretty productive in the face of some serious medical challenges.
More loosely, I would consider a year with two novels and two dozen short stories drafted, plus revisions on prior work, to be successful.
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How do you define success? Leave us a comment! Next Wednesday, we wrap up these five questions with a bit of advice for new(er) writers. Stay tuned.
Issue 14 Reader’s Choice Survey
Gentle readers!
Shimmer Issue 14
We want to know what you think about Issue 14, so we set up a quick survey. It should take you less than a minute to complete.
Here’s the fun part: whichever story gets the most votes? We’ll work with that story’s author to put the whole story up online so everyone can read it. Help your favorite author get his or her story the readership it deserves!
We’ll also randomly select one responder to get a free copy of the issue of their choice — just give us your email address in the last question so we can get in touch with you if you’re the lucky winner.
Click here to take the survey! Votes accepted until midnight Mountain time on Sunday, February 26th.
Haven’t had a chance to read the issue yet? You can grab a copy on our Issue 14 page, or get our shiny new Kindle version for the introductory rate of 99 cents!
Shimmer #14 reviewed
SFRevu has delightful things to say about Shimmer #14!
In short: “Shimmer is the kind of magazine you should read in one sitting, letting the beautiful words wash over you.” We couldn’t agree more!
Don’t forget, Shimmer #14 is our first issue that is available for the Kindle. This week, it’s an amazing 99 cents (77p for you across the pond!).
Five Authors + Five Questions : You Pantser
Writers write. It’s what we do. To go above and beyond that, by answering interview questions they receive in email, is astounding indeed! For this round of Five Authors/Five Questions, I’ve barged into the workdays of Louise Marley, Lavie Tidhar, Lisa Mantchev, E.C. Myers, and Jay Lake.
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Question three: Do you outline or are you a “pantser”? How much planning and prep goes into any given project, and is the process any different for novels vs. short stories?
Louise Marley: I write very little short work, and I would say I never outline those pieces. It doesn’t hurt to be a pantser with short fiction, because the commitment is so much shorter. I do, however, have a quite specific process with novels.
I’m a hybrid! I’m a pantser in the main, but I always have an outline to help keep me organized. What I like about the outline is not straying off in too many directions, spinning my wheels writing something that doesn’t belong in the story. What I like about simply setting off on a scene, without knowing precisely where it’s going, is the voyage of discovery, the surprises and revelations that come about. My process, invariably, is to write three chapters, letting my imagination guide me, and then stop to outline the whole novel. Much more fun writing the chapters! Outlining is hard, but I think it’s a necessary exercise.
As it happens, I’ve just begun a series of blogs called “How I Write a Novel” (I blog at Red Room). This is a question a writer is often asked, and I thought it would be fun to write about my process at the same time I’m actually employing it.
Lavie Tidhar: I prefer to just go at it, without any forward planning, but that can have serious drawbacks. These days I tend to plan more but over-planning will kill any pleasure I take from it (after all, if I already know what’s going to happen, why would I want to write the thing in the first place?). So it’s a mix for me. The best is still when a story idea pops up and then just gets written. But, particularly with longer projects, I often have to stop and plan ahead and then keep going. And of course, occasionally I take the wrong turning and have to delete big chunks of dead-ends… not the happiest thing in the world, but all part of the work!
Lisa Mantchev: No matter how long the piece, I do a skeleton outline and then allow for movement and wiggling as I work my way through it. On any given novel project, I have six or seven versions of the outline that I’ve revised as necessary.
E.C. Myers: Most of the time I’m a pantser. I usually have a clear beginning, middle, and end in mind, and many scenes in between, but I’m “discovering” the story as I write it. I’ve disdained outlines in the past, but on my third novel, which I’m still revising, I was wasting a lot of my morning writing time trying to figure out where the story was going, so early on I stopped and outlined the whole thing. I found that it helped me make more efficient use of my time, because when I opened the day’s file, I knew exactly what scenes I was going to write next, and it didn’t make the process any less organic, as I’d feared; the outline simply changed as I got deeper into the book. The more complicated the world building, the more research and planning has to go into it, as in that novel that I ended up outlining. Every project is different, and what worked for one might not work again. I haven’t noticed any big differences in how I tackle a short story vs. a novel, but I’ve never outlined a short story. The length and scope is usually small enough that I can keep it all in my head more easily, while a novel can be a messy, sprawling thing that represents months of drafting instead of days or weeks.
Jay Lake: For short stories, I am a total “pantser.” I write by following the headlights, in reading order. This is true even when writing nonlinear fiction. That method works up to about 50-60,000 words, then it falls apart.
For novels, I outline. As I’ve progressed through my career, my outlines have grown more elaborate. I had no outline for Rocket Science, a five paragraph outline for Trial of Flowers, a thirteen page outline for Mainspring. The outline for Sunspin (admittedly a trilogy rather than a standalone) is currently 140 pages, and I keep periodically adding to it. That represents months of thinking, planning and prep. So for me the processes are very different depending on the nature of the manuscript.
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How do you plan a project? Leave us a comment! Next Wednesday, we talk about what a successful year of writing looks like.
Huzzah! Shimmer 14 on Kindle!
Shimmer Issue 14
We’re delighted to announce that Shimmer Issue 14 is now available for the Kindle! All the same great stories and illustrations, but now super-convenient to read on your Kindle or Kindle app.
To celebrate, we’ve priced it at just 99 cents for a week, so grab it while it’s hot. We even enabled lending, so you can share it with a friend. Click here to buy your copy of Shimmer Issue 14 for your Kindle today!
And once you’ve read it? Go ahead and post a review on Amazon. We’d love to hear what you think, and are scheming up a special prize to be awarded to a randomly-selected reviewer. Stay tuned for details.
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