In Tuesday’s post, I began to reminisce a wee bit about my modest beginnings as a writer.  Like many others, I had to steal moments to write because of a demanding day job.  While many would argue that my career as a scientist uniquely prepared me for writing sci-fi thrillers, I can only say that it does make it easier, sometimes.  Moreover, every day that’s less true.  If you want to write a sci-fi thriller and it contains new scientific or technological themes, you can probably google the key words and come up with more information than you should ever put into a work of fiction.

Those day jobs can be exhausting, but many of us still manage to find time to write.  Better said, we still participate in the writing life.  On a day trip or vacation, I would often sit in a coffee shop and jot down what-ifs on a napkin while my wife visited the local stores.  Sometimes, that napkin would be filled with equations relating to my day job, but just as often I would note ideas and observations about the people in the coffee shop and passers-by on the sidewalk outside, or jot down story ideas.  This is writing.

My day job sometimes required a lot of travel.  Airports are ideal for developing character ideas.  There might be an arrogant SOB on his cell phone talking down to his girlfriend—you have to love those cell phones because people for some reason think you don’t get an idea about what’s being said just from half the conversation and the twisted expressions on their faces.  There might be a young mother trying mightily to shepherd two or three screaming kids that have the correct opinion about the abuses of the TSA and the airlines.  There could be Hare Krishnas dancing at the entrance—haven’t seen those in awhile.  There could be the tired passenger who has come in on a flight that started out sitting three hours on a tarmac somewhere.  She’s trying to figure out which way the automatic door opens and makes the wrong decision.

Even if you want to write vampire romance, S&M, or weird fantasy and far-out sci-fi, the human element in your stories is essential.  You need to understand the human condition.  The best way to do that is to become a weekend writer.  Jot down those ideas on your coffee break.  Watch, listen, smell.  Yeah, the reaction of a maintenance worker to the odor of burned insulation might just find its way into your book or short story.  One or two words about trivial things can make your writing non-trivial when you go at your writing full-time.

I’ve never had writer’s block.  I can’t even understand the concept.  I’ve always had the problem of typing out the words fast enough, even now that I’m a full-time writer.  Sure, I can agonize over plot details—where scenes should fit, what characters to put in them, and so forth—but the central idea, most often a what-if, is always there.  I thank my weekend-writer ways for that.  I observed human beings living their lives—my stories are their stories.

Fictional renderings, of course, magnify aspects of humanity.  We often say a story is larger-than-life or see many characteristics from people we know in an author’s characters.  As a writer, that’s what you want.  I don’t know how you do that as a twenty-something graduating from an MFA program.  I’d change Spock’s adage: Live long and prosper…as a writer.  Of course, there’s a lot involved in the meaning of live in this phrase.

With some living under your belt, you can still write even with the day job—and you’ll do it more effectively.  Today is the best of times and the worst of times for the weekend writer, to borrow a line from Dickens.  It’s the best because you have access to rapid routes for releasing your books.

When I became serious about writing, first seeking escape from the doldrums of that day job and finally free at last to write, I went the traditional route.  Today self-publishing is much more liberating compared to legacy publishing.  I had over 1000 rejections trying to follow that legacy route, mostly form emails or letters from agents already geared to deliver only the sure bet to the Big Six (now Big Five)—can you believe there are still agents that want an MS and don’t accept email queries?  Several agents asked to read my manuscripts, sat on them for months, and then finally wrote back, “Sorry, just not for me,” or something similar.

You don’t have to go through that.  You can try the legacy publishing route if you like, especially if you have a famous author willing to pimp your work (I’m not saying that’s bad, but it’s a bit like entering Harvard because your daddy donated a building).  Still, most will find it just as disheartening as I did.  And, caveat emptor: if you do receive a contract with a cash advance, be advised that you will usually have only a few months to make that book a success (you’re generally responsible for the marketing—the big publishers wash their hands of it, unless you happen to be that famous author); yep, only months before it’s yanked from the Barnes and Noble shelves and you will, more than likely, have to return part of that advance.

Today’s self-publishing opportunities offer an author complete control over his destiny.  You are independent of agents, editors, and marketers.  It’s still a lottery whether your book is successful.  In fact, because self-publishing, especially the ebook phenomenon, has so liberated the publishing business, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.  That one fact makes it the worst of times.  You can release your book.  It will now compete with thousands written by other writers, many of them weekend writers.  The competition is ferocious—a good thing for readers; maybe not so much for writers.

Gone are the days when a writer can put his book into promo at Amazon’s KDP Select and enjoy thousands of downloads.  Readers are saturated, especially with all those free books.  It’s a bit daunting for the reader, in fact.  You see a book title and blurb that sounds interesting, see it has 4 or 5 stars on Amazon, and download it, only to discover that the book doesn’t interest you or it’s badly written or formatted.  Maybe too much of a good thing for the reader too, because not all writers, through ignorance or lack of skills, maintain a high standard.

Don’t get me wrong—as a reviewer, I’ve seen plenty of crap come out of the legacy publishing business too.  I usually take the attitude that, for $3.99 or less, I can afford to take the gamble, but many readers are justifiably frustrated.  And that’s part of the problem for the writer: just because someone downloads your bargain ebook doesn’t make him a reader.  You can’t know if that someone read the book and liked it—there are few feedback mechanisms.

The best of times and the worst of times.  It’s still liberating.  Don’t get discouraged, but it’s truer today than twenty years ago: writing is competitive and stressful, readers rule and determine who wins the lottery, but those who persevere at least have established a sufficient condition for success: you can’t win the lottery if you don’t play.  On my website, you will see N. Scott Momaday’s quote: “I simply kept my goal in mind and persisted.  Perseverance is a large part of writing.”  Little did he know when he spoke those words how much perseverance a modern writer would need!

Why do I write?  I love to tell stories.  In ancient times, I would have been a wanderer, spinning yarns accompanied by song and music, a vagabond minstrel full of blarney, happy to live off a few coins tossed my way.  My writing now is a way to approximate that ancestral joy derived from entertaining a crowd.  I write to entertain and, in the process, I hope to make my world a wee bit better place when I leave it than when I entered it.  Frankly, I don’t care if I win the lottery—I’m having too damn much fun!

In libris libertas….

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 6th, 2013 at 4:00 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.