In September of 2007, I started this blog
with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how
little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak
at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and
Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the
writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran,
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together
they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors,
publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough
publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right” and I’m busy
sharing that with you.
While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make
enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the
professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what
I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a
point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote
above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and
sales! As always, your comments are welcome!
You’ll see the link
to this one just below my banner above, so if you want to read it in its
entirety, do it before you read what I did RIGHT to get it published.
First of all, I
joined the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America about eleven years
ago, right after my third major publication (http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2014/12/writing-advice-what-went-right-with-pig.html),
this gave me a certain legitimacy that I couldn’t have gotten any other way.
While I’ve variously regretted and reveled in having the membership, in the
long run I’ve been honored to be part of this organization. Membership gave me
access to all of its publications, including the blog, which is a
SFWA-qualifying, paying market.
Secondly, I am
passionate about young adults and the science fiction they read. I grew up on
the hopeful futures of Robert A. Heinlein, Andre Norton, and Madeleine L’Engle
and was dismayed by the number of doom-and-gloom books being published. Though
I wondered if I was being just a crotchety old man, I was somewhat worried.
Third was that I
regularly present at an annual local event called the Young Author’s Conference
– that typically hosts three to four thousand young people over a period of
four days on a university campus. Spectacular in every way, I give the Science
Fiction & Fantasy presentation every year. The year I wrote the article, I
asked my “kids” to shoot our words that meant “science fiction” to them. Of
course there were the regulars, like robots, spaceships, aliens, Star Wars, and
dozens of others, but after four days of three-sessions-a-day interaction, I
discovered that in EVERY SINGLE GROUP, there was a consensus that science
fiction meant apocalypse.
Worse than
disheartening, I thought that this was a disaster for the future of the young
readers in the class – because these young readers were going to be the young
scientists, politicians, soldiers, and citizens of the future. Instead of growing
up with visions of Gene Rodenberry’s UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS in their
heads, they were growing up with visions of Suzanne Collins’ Panem as the
template on which to build their own futures.
I wrote a short
essay on it and sent it off to the SFWA blog – because if anyone could change
that future, it was the writers represented by the organization. Twenty people responded
to it – and about half of them grinned at my concern, saying (among other
things): “I would be more worried about the apocalyptic trend if there wasn’t
also a vampire trend. I don’t believe young people are really worried about
vampires, so I’m not sure why I’d believe they are more worried than usual
about the apocalypse.”
Valid point, but far
too hopeful for my taste.
So – what did I do
right?
- Joined “the club” (SFWA).
- Had a passionate response to a subject.
- Wrote an article.
No comments:
Post a Comment