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!
I’m going to skip the history a bit because I’m still somewhat in shock…
I am part of an online writers group called CODEX. We trade writing
advice, share frustrations, and celebrate success together.
Occasionally, we share new markets or comment on closed ones.
In December of 2014, one of the members posted a call for writers for
this company: “SciFutures - Prototyping the Future: SciFutures is a tech
and innovation company that uses storytelling and science fiction prototyping
to guide organizations in creating their preferred futures. We specialize in
big, long established companies that need assistance dealing with the rate of
exponential change that's happening in the world today. Find out what it's like
writing science fiction stories for these corporations and what it means to be
a futurist in this realm.”
I’d published a book and several articles that helped people use
science in everyday life, from preaching children’s sermons to an experiment
you could do involving heart rate and respiration at an all-girl sleepover. The
science part was natural. The writing part was natural, too. So…
I sent the requested information and after a few, brief exchanges,
really didn’t hear much from them until Thursday, March 17. I got this in my
email before I left for work: “Dear Writers: I would like to invite you all to
participate in our current brief on mood modulation which I have attached. It
would be appreciated if you can let me know if you are unable to complete this
assignment so I can offer your place to another writer. The deadline for this
brief is Monday the 21st by 9am.”
WHAT?!?!?
How could anyone
expect me to be creative, artistic, and you know, WRITERLY in four days?
I read the brief, and then I knew that contrary to what my “author’s
voice” was screaming at me, I could do this. Besides, I’d done work-for-hire
before. I talk about it here…hmmm…I just realized that I have NOT talked about
it. I worked for the Science Museum of Minnesota and the television series,
NEWTON’S APPLE writing curriculum that went with the TV broadcasts, as well as
vacation Bible school puppet shows and activities for AugsburgFortress Publishing,
and a handbook of twenty-six activities you could do with an online children’s magazine’s
first story collection (only got a “kill fee” for that one).
At any rate, they wanted two treatments for the idea and as I work with
high school students, the connections were obvious and I made use of
experiences that I’d had in my thirty years of teaching and in the past five
years as a guidance counselor.
I followed the formatting rules they’d included, wrote up the beginning
of the stories (they only wanted about 1000 words each) and sent them off. The
pay they offered was HUGE compared the amount of work involved – but then I realized
that except for getting my work in CRICKET, CICADA, and ANALOG, the pay I’d
gotten writing for the museum, the PBS television channel, and the religious
publisher as a work-for-hire was coming out of a corporate budget and I didn’t
retain any rights.
That might be the “worst” part of the deal. By the same token, it’s
unlikely that I’ll be doing any more writing about Dr. Jill Yaeger, for a
defunct TV Science show, or vacation Bible school curriculum all on my own. The
mood modification ideas are interesting, but I actually like writing about
aliens more than I like writing near-future SF…though I should point out that
my sales of alien stories are minimal while my sale of stories dealing with
technology in the near-to-century-ahead and how Humans interact with it have
been noticeably more numerous…hmmm.
Two days ago, a HUGE deposit appeared in my PayPal account. They liked the ideas and promptly paid for them!The take-away from this Writing Advice:
Two days ago, a HUGE deposit appeared in my PayPal account. They liked the ideas and promptly paid for them!The take-away from this Writing Advice:
- I went with my strengths – science and writing.
- I took up a challenge.
- I’m not an “author” (subject to “the inspiration of the Muse”), I AM a writer!
- I do work-for-hire – not often, but as necessary.
- I CAN write to a deadline, even when it’s short!
- I shouldn’t have been surprised (but I was!), I’m a pretty good writer and I like thinking about how science and Humans interact.
Anyone else out there work-for-hire sometimes? What was your experience
like?
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