Howard Andrew Jones

Yes, exactly.

Of course, you've got a whole magazine of your own, which helps. ;)

But I'm right there in the same mental place!

-The Gneech

Thanks for sharing the foxhold with me!

Howard

And don't forget the other advantage REH had: three cents a word went a LOT further back then than now. It was actually possible to make a living from shorter pieces.

These days, yes, it's novels or screen plays or nothing.

Indeed. Though I do hear rumors of people who make a living writing for magazines, I've never actually seen one.

Howard

Ding-ding-ding. Preach it!

One thing that I think could rejuvinate the short market (aside from phenomenal ventures like BG - basically high-end quality format subscription to an ongoing anthology) would be a subscription and impulse-buy distribution of individually packaged, pocket-sized short stories.

I think people would pay 3 dollars ($2.99 retail, maybe!) for a pocket-sized, easily concealed and carried short story. Something that people could sneak with them at work or read on the subway and give away, lose or toss without much risk. A monthly subscription to a short story would provide an ongoing revenue stream, fit into people's busy lives, and provide a simple pass along that people didn't need to invest a lot of cash or time doing.

In other words, I think the growth of the short fiction market lies in its twitterfication.

But I'm probably criminally insane.

That's a tantalizing thought, mystery visitor, and were I a publishing mogul, I might want to experiment with that. It's one of my pet theories that fantasy and science fiction novels have gotten too big -- compare them to the size of those novels in the late 70s. I love reading, but they really intimidate me. How to find time to get through one?

Howard

"Write what makes you happy" is definitely the way to go. I've been doing that for many years, and it's only in the last coulpe that "what makes me happy" has coincided with "what's actualy saleable". A lot of my earlier stuff was woefuly indulgent but I enjoyed it and it taught me how to handle words. Now I can (at least soem of the time) write stuff that sells, but I'm writing what I want to write and finding a market for it, ratehr than writing to market. It must be pointed out that hat is NOT how it used to work in the fabled "good old days" - in the pulp heyday when short fiction WAS a viable way of making a (kind of) living, you wrote what the market wanted and nothing ese, or you starved (Nick Mamatas made this point only the other day on his blog).

I've been writing short stories because it is honing my skills, and getting me editorial feedback, and getting me the start of a kind of network of writers and editors that I "know", to some extent. These are all useful things, but there's no doubt my natural inclination is towards being a novelist. This is, of course, a good thing, because as you rightly note - novels are what pay.

I need to visit his blog and see what he has to say on the subject.

Write what makes you happy. I think we lose sight of that sometimes. I know I have in the past. I hope not to do that again.

Howard

Hmmm, seems that we are doing the opposite right now. I'm trying to crank out more short stories while my novel languishes. But then the novel is more or less done, just waiting for one more polish pass and a reintegration of the short story threads I extracted from it. At first I was resistant to the idea of writing short stories, but I found that as I was writing in a single world with characters that cross stories that it was almost like writing novels. I've been thinking about trying to put together an anthology of the short stories and see if I can find a publisher interested in that.

But hey, the fact that you get a couple of hours in of writing a week means that you will get the novel done eventually. And that is a lot in and of itself.

Fritz, I'd be careful trying to market an anthology. Those are REALLY hard to sell, even for established writers. Check with The Mighty One. Stick with a novel.

Howard

Howard, I don't disagree. It is what I've heard as well. But I think I'll mention the collection of short stories when I shop for an agent, as they are strongly related to the novel. Several lay out the origins of a number of the main characters and will, in the coming months, include a story that follows up on some of the minor characters.

Dude, I really needed to read this right now. I feel very similar. In fact, you seem to have put into words something I couldn't until now, today.

I appreciate you and feel so very fortunate to know you!

::hugs:::

Thanks, Rhona. I'm glad my ramblings are actually useful. I appreciate you too.

Howard

But, as Sondheim writes, "Artists are bizarre..." Then again, he also writes: "The lives of the wicked should be made brief, for the rest of us death will be a relief; we all deserve to die." So quoting Sondheim at you won't help any, unless it comforts you to know that you are in fellowship with other crazy artists, across the board. And at least you're not in the ear-cutting off stage. Yet. And at least you're squeezing your few hours where you can get them. ONWARD! So, as Gilbert and Sullivan write:

"Go, ye heroes, go to glory
Tho' ye die in combat GORY
Ye shall live in song and story -
Go to immortality!"

Who was it who wrote The Artist's Secret? It's something like this:

After a time, the writer was forgotten. But the work lived.

Howard

Sure, writers are, um... eccentric... (crazy, weird, whatever...) but that's what makes their stories good. Could you imagine stories by a completely "normal" person? They would be so drab and boring... Almost like a textbook, but with less technical jargon. I don't know about you, but I really didn't enjoy reading textbooks...

Writing what you enjoy is always best because you always do better at something you get joy out of... Be it writing or playing or what have you.

I know the frustration of not writing as well as you would like, and I also know the habit of being much harder on your self than on others. It's all a never ending learning process.

And now that this comment is getting overly long, let me just say - you can only do what you can do. Write as much as you can, when you can, and know that you are making progress. This, is always a good thing. :-)

Great advice. Where were you ten years ago when I beat my head against the wall much more frequently? Maybe we all need to learn these lessons on our own. I think it really helps to be in touch with other writers for reasons like this. Still, I am afraid I, at least, have to learn some things the hard way.

Howard

Nothing to be afraid of... I think the hard lessons are the ones we need to learn the most. ;-) (There really is no easy way about it, is there?)

So, do you write from outline?

(Woudl comment more, but reecovering from 40th B'day party...)

Sometimes I write from a very detailed outline, sometimes it's more loose. It depends upon the project. Right now I'm working on a chapter that's fairly loose, except that I know what will happen in the scene before I sit down to write it. That's easy to do now that I can only snatch writing in brief grabs at the moment.

Howard

I totally understand where you're coming from, Howard. After selling my first half-dozen short stories (most of which are still waiting in line for publication), I realized that there is NO making a living writing short stories today. Oh, sure, it feels great to get a story accepted...then it feels great two to three years later when most fiction mags get around to publishing it. But there are scant little external rewards in writing short fiction. The TRUE reward for writing a story is the satisfaction it gives you as a writer--and nothing else. If someone else likes it enough to pay you some scratch for it, so much the better, but if you hold your creative breath for that, you're doomed.

I came to grips with the fact a few years back that MOST of the stuff I write in life will go unpublished--most writers will tell you the same thing. Every writer has a few stories or novels (or whole rooms full of them) that never went anywhere. That's okay. Because every piece you write, no matter how short or long, is a stepping stone on the road to where you want to be: which is A Better Writer. Everything you write is important, because it leads you to the next thing you write--and hopefully each piece you write will be better than the last.

I finished my Big Fantasy Novel last summer, and I'm still shopping it around to agents and publishers--it's extremely difficult to get anybody interested when you don't have a "name"--it's the old Catch 22: nobody wants to publish your novel until you've had a novel published. No agent wants to rep you until you get another agent repping you. I'm amazed that anyone gets published anywhere!

So while I continue to pound the pavement looking for a home for my novel, I decided to go back to writing some short stories for a couple of reasons:

1) Because the level of satisfaction you get from crafting a whole, complete story is tremendous--and it doesn't take you a year or more (like a novel does). A great short story is a whole UNIVERSE unto itself, and it's more like a small-term reward for the writer's sould. (And who knows--it may find a publisher as well...but that's beside the point.)

2) Because writers have to KEEP WRITING. Use it or lose it. Instead of sitting around scheming and fretting about how I'm going to sell my novel, I start writing new stories, and I avoid the frustration of marketing--which is the hardest part of writing novels. Selling yourself, marketing yourself, and promoting yourself is NOT writing--but every writer has to do it. So by continuing to write short stories I'm preventing all this ongoing other stuff from overshadowning what it's really all about: writing great fiction.

Also, there is an awesome freedom in a short story--although there are word limits, there are really no IDEA limits. When you get into writing a novel, you have to keep the "weave" going, and everything you do sets up rules you have to follow as the tale proceeds. But in a short story, you can do pretty much anything...

So maybe this is a good analogy:

Novels are love affairs...brilliant, passionate long-term relationships featuring fulfilling and intimate experiences with a single partner who becomes your whole world.

Whereas Short Stories are one-night stands--bouts of passionate lovemaking that make the blood race and the heart flutter (among other things)...but you don't live with them over a period of months and years...you do the thing, lay back, and sigh with contentment.

Both are satsifying experiences...but in very different ways.

Whew...if I smoked, I'd need a cigarette... :)

That's good stuff, mystery writer. Thank you for taking the time to share that.

I definitely understand about the periods of NOT writing eating up at you. I go months at a time without writing and every day of those months I think "I really need to get back to my writing".

Amy Farmer

I like what A.A. Attanasio says about those periods of non-writing. He compares these periods (including periods of "Writer's Block") to a pregnancy. While a woman is pregnant, a new life is gestating inside her womb. Eventually, it HAS to come out.

Similarly, if you are a writer by nature, and nothing's coming out of you, it creates a vaccum...and nature abhors a vacuum. So A.A. advises fellow writers to embrace and accept these "down" times as simply Periods of Gestations. The beautiful thing about it? The longer your gestation period, the more likely something is to come pouring out of you.

Also, it helps to remember that even when you're not "writing," you're actually writing. What's that, he said? Writing begins with thought. THINKING about writing. Carrying ideas around in your head, letting them take root, percolate, gestate (or whatever analogy you want to make) is an important part of the process--as is spending time READING great works.

The big difference between writers and wannabe writers is that writers eventually sit down and start pouring their ideas on the paper. But you can't do that until your idea is done gestating. A human life takes about 9 months to gestate...stories and novels require their own gestations periods, which vary for each author, from idea to idea.

Or, as another famous writer put it (I think it was Mark Twain): "Writing is the successful application of the seat of the paints to the seat of the chair."

Let it gestate; then take deep breaths and push that sucker out as soon as it's READY...

--John R. Fultz

Sorry--that should have been ..."seat of the PANTS..."

There you go. Robert E. Howard called it "fililng the well." Sometimes he'd go a few weeks without sitting down to write. Instead he'd be doing whatever else -- researching some topic that interested him, going to Mexico, hanging out with friends. When he sat back down, the well would bubble up with fresh ideas.

Real life can't help but get in the way sometimes. Like, say, when you're moving, or giving birth, or finishing your thesis, or whatever else. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get in the saddle when you've got the horse under control again.

REH had another advantage: he lived with his parents.

Just a quick note: You actually get less time for writing once the novels start to sell. You have agent's notes, editor's notes, copyedits and the blue line edit to do. It can actually take longer to write something new because you have to do so much to the old.

Signed,
The guy who had to put my WIP aside for a few weeks to revise my debut book.

I bet that's true... but I'd love to try to make writing fit in because I'm writing for part of my income rather than trying to make it fit in while I'm not writing for part of my income. Well, an miniscule part of my income.

Howard

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