I was lucky. Suspiciously so, actually. Writing professionally snuck up on me long before I got the guts up to write for myself.
My tutor at university was approached by a publisher to help research a ghost book for a pittance. She said no, but knew I was broke, and knew my essay writing style got positive comments, so passed them to me. That gave me leverage to get given an interview to do for the London Student newspaper (Terry Pratchett, of all people!), which in turn led a mate to pass my name to a family friend who needed someone to dash out cheap non-fiction direct-marketing books...
... cutting it short a bit, that work gave me enough of a history to swing a couple of pitches for more serious non-fic work -- guides for a game produced by a company I'd worked for (Alright, alright, it was Magic: The Gathering). The guides swung me a job full-time as an editor, and part-time work writing for RPGs. That's straying into speculative fiction territory, and some of the RPG work included short stories. By this point, my publication history legitimately carried 60+ items. One of the RPG companies decided to use me for an entirely in-character artifact (the diary of a mad visionary), and that actually worked really well. It's still the piece I'm closest to being happy with, I think. Then when the same publisher got let down at the 11th hour for a novella (the 11th segment in a 13-book story arc, ouch), the diary piece swung it for me. They liked the novella enough to give me a trilogy the following year, which brings me more or less up to date.
I got to the end of the trilogy worn out and mildly traumatised (it was a hellish year for many reasons), but having discovered that yes, I could write a novel. In fact, I could write three of them, and while they aren't high art -- 3 novels in 16 months didn't leave time for that! -- the target audience seemed to like them. Somewhere along the way, I picked up the confidence to admit to myself that yeah, actually I'm not all that bad at this lark.
I am finding though that it's hard to maintain the discipline to write when it's for myself. It's a lot easier for me to write when it's the way I pay the rent than it is when I get home so drained I can barely talk...
I have many Evil Plans(tm) hatching to get back behind a keyboard of my own full time. I guess though that my acid test is going to be whether I can keep at it anyway, despite being exhausted, despite having a hundred other things I have to do, despite having no guarantees that the time and effort will fetch any reward.
In many ways, it's like being cast back to the beginning, having done the middle.
Anyway, I'm really rambling, and it's your journal, so I'm going to shut up!!
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 08:00 am (UTC)My tutor at university was approached by a publisher to help research a ghost book for a pittance. She said no, but knew I was broke, and knew my essay writing style got positive comments, so passed them to me. That gave me leverage to get given an interview to do for the London Student newspaper (Terry Pratchett, of all people!), which in turn led a mate to pass my name to a family friend who needed someone to dash out cheap non-fiction direct-marketing books...
... cutting it short a bit, that work gave me enough of a history to swing a couple of pitches for more serious non-fic work -- guides for a game produced by a company I'd worked for (Alright, alright, it was Magic: The Gathering). The guides swung me a job full-time as an editor, and part-time work writing for RPGs. That's straying into speculative fiction territory, and some of the RPG work included short stories. By this point, my publication history legitimately carried 60+ items. One of the RPG companies decided to use me for an entirely in-character artifact (the diary of a mad visionary), and that actually worked really well. It's still the piece I'm closest to being happy with, I think. Then when the same publisher got let down at the 11th hour for a novella (the 11th segment in a 13-book story arc, ouch), the diary piece swung it for me. They liked the novella enough to give me a trilogy the following year, which brings me more or less up to date.
I got to the end of the trilogy worn out and mildly traumatised (it was a hellish year for many reasons), but having discovered that yes, I could write a novel. In fact, I could write three of them, and while they aren't high art -- 3 novels in 16 months didn't leave time for that! -- the target audience seemed to like them. Somewhere along the way, I picked up the confidence to admit to myself that yeah, actually I'm not all that bad at this lark.
I am finding though that it's hard to maintain the discipline to write when it's for myself. It's a lot easier for me to write when it's the way I pay the rent than it is when I get home so drained I can barely talk...
I have many Evil Plans(tm) hatching to get back behind a keyboard of my own full time. I guess though that my acid test is going to be whether I can keep at it anyway, despite being exhausted, despite having a hundred other things I have to do, despite having no guarantees that the time and effort will fetch any reward.
In many ways, it's like being cast back to the beginning, having done the middle.
Anyway, I'm really rambling, and it's your journal, so I'm going to shut up!!