Tag Archives: publishing

Updates + Poem Published in Strange Horizons!

Hi friends!

To start with the most exciting news, my speculative fiction poem “The Nameless Woman” was just published in my favorite magazine, Strange Horizons. As you can imagine, I’m dancing around and shrieking in an extremely undignified manner.

I’ve been working overtime during the summer, so have had to put the blog on hold until September. But I did manage to fit in an online flash fiction workshop with Clarion West. Here’s what else I’ve been up to, and upcoming content for blog posts:

I made some wonderful new writing friends and colleagues through Clarion West, and am setting up a Discord server for us to continue sharing critiques and resources (if you’re a beginning/intermediate writer looking for community and willing to commit to a monthly online critique exchange, please reach out for an invite!)

Through the workshop, I produced 6 short stories over the course of 6 weeks. The fast turnaround, 1000 word limit for each story, and above all the group feedback pushed me far past the level I’d been able to get to on my own so far. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned was the necessity of good critique buddies!

Overall, I was blown away how much free and low cost programming and support Clarion West offers new writers, and can’t recommend them enough. I’ll also be sharing notes and reflections from the workshop when I resume blogging.

Finally, I got to attend an in-person lecture and workshop with one of my favorite authors, Carrie Vaughn. They say to never meet your heroes, but in this case I’m so glad I did. Vaughn turned out to be not only a fantastic writer, but a skilled teacher and beyond that a truly lovely person with a kind and generous heart. I’ll soon be sharing the writing exercises we got from this lecture, and her insightful response to the question I’ve held onto for five years since I first read Bannerless and never thought I’d actually get to ask (!)

I’m currently reading On Writing Horror by the Horror Writers Association, The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, and Pale Fire by Nabokov. I’m also re-reading several books on writing technique and want to do a review of the most helpful ones, including a few surprising finds, since when I first started this year’s goal to begin learning to write professionally, I remember the difficulty of putting together a curriculum without clear guidance.

My writing goals for the rest of the year are: apply the critiques I received to my flash fiction pieces and revise 3 for submission, focus on scene in September (write 4 scenes/week), focus on horror in October (write 1 horror short/week), workshop 3 short stories with my new critique group, and write a 50,000 word first draft of a novel for NaNoWriMo.

Hope everyone is having a great summer, remember to enjoy what there is to enjoy!

Austin

Taking storytelling seriously – 6 month progress report

Reflection

In January, I committed to seriously pursuing writing fiction as a long-term vocation. I’ve written since I was young, and had periodic years where I put serious effort into improving my writing and publishing, but have always set storytelling aside. I’ve struggled with the usual sense of inadequacy, the internalized idea it’s not a “worthwhile” pursuit or that there’s “more important” things I should focus on, and genuinely needing to overcome some challenges in my life first. But I’ve always loved writing, felt compelled to write, and it’s the one thing I know I can stick with for the rest of my life and give my all, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Looking around, I see people develop at different rates, and compared to many of my peers, I have been a slow grower. But, we all start from different places, and life has thrown me a couple extraordinary curve-balls. It took me about 30 years to sort out my priorities, and I used to worry about falling behind, about “proving myself.” But nearing my thirties, something shifted in my brain to perceive, more patiently, a different time scale. Now, I think in terms of being in it for the long haul. My goal is to have written ten novels by 2035, and maybe published one of them. It feels good to be patient with myself and give myself the time I need to actually learn this craft. I’ll be a sloth or a snail, just enjoying the doing—“I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.”

It was a challenging start to this commitment this year, because I also started working two jobs, sometimes 60 hours a week. But I have been extremely disciplined about how I use my remaining time. On work days, I tend to either study a story or writing textbook, or work on a shorter piece or exercise. Fortunately, looking back on creative writing and education courses I took in undergrad, and my own teaching experience, I’ve been able to design what I think is a pretty good syllabus for the year, which I continue to adapt and develop as I learn more. On off-days or days I only work a single job, I write 4-12 hours. Although entering this next half ofthe year, I’m cutting back because I do have a tendency to go too hard and see diminishing gains. Now I’m trying to keep it around 2-4 hours of writing a day, plus study hours. Rest and doing other stuff is important, not just for recovery and strength, but because the subconscious plays such a role in writing and needs unstructured time and space to foment, as well as new experiences to draw from.

I figure that, if I continue to work consistently and keep study widely and deeply, there’s no way I can’t be at least decent at storytelling after ten years. I have reached mastery of only a few things before, not even mastery but just being roundly competent, like getting to the point in tennis as a kid where I could compete for and actually win first place. It felt amazing. Not the winning, but the sheer possession of the craft, the deep thrill of being really very good at something. The special joy you can get out of life when you know something backwards and forwards to the point you can actually begin to innovate in the field. That’s where I want to get with writing stories. The failure for me now is if I don’t follow through, not if I never become a genius or get recognized or rich (ha!) from writing.

Of course, I’d still also love to be recognized, and to make some money from writing. That’s another thing I used to feel embarrassed about admitting, but I’m kind of done trying to impress people, I prefer to just be honest about everything. I write because I have things I want to share with other people. I want to give people a good story, relief from suffering, connection with others, useful ideas, and assistance in noticing certain beautiful things. And my life would be a lot easier and more enjoyable if I could make a living from it too, so that I could truly put all my best hours into production, doing what I love. That’s the dream.

For now, I will do my little writing exercises and write my shabby, deranged little first drafts, and hopefully start to make some writing buddies along the way, because this would be even more fun with company.

2024 Stats – 6 Month Progress Report

+ I got a poem accepted for upcoming publication in my favorite magazine, Strange Horizons (!). While I’m learning to write stories now, I’m still trying to work on poetry while I can.

+ Outlined and completed 8 chapters of a romance novel based on study of a particular niche and market. However, I decided the goal of completing a novel was one I needed to fail for now. The more practice the better at this novice stage. I can complete a lot more short stories in a year and probably learn more from that than from completing a single novel, so I pivoted to short stories starting in February.

+ I finished 8 short stories out of 14 projects. It took me a couple months to learn I needed to focus on finishing everything I start. Since then, I’ve finished everything, even though these endings are predictably abysmal, because… I haven’t been practicing endings, since I haven’t been finishing things.

+ I published 5 blog posts, including 2 book reviews (and this post :P). I also wrote a number of essays/analyses/blog posts for private reflection and learning/practice, but was selective about what I published here.

+ I developed a syllabus and disciplined practice for learning to write stories as well as a 5 year plan for moving forward with writing. This may actually be the best achievement of all, because it’s allowed me to make incremental, actual progress that I can track and know I’m not floundering.

+ I read 40 books, far more books in 6 months than I probably read in the past 3 years (below).

The biggest lessons I ‘ve learned so far about learning to write stories

1. FINISH what I start. No matter how terrible and ridiculous it makes the story, give the story a conclusion. Also applies to study–work through one textbook or story analysis at a time. Embrace that you are a beginner, that this story isn’t going to be good, that everything is practice for a much longer-term goal.

2. Set goals and steps to meet those goals, and reflect regularly (at least once a week) on progress towards the goal.

3. Break down other peoples’ stories and write in imitation of them for practice. I think this is the most effective learning strategy I’ve tried so far. Textbooks can help give you broad overviews of story structure, or different techniques, but the active/constructive learning that occurs when you break down a story yourself, then try to apply it to writing your own story, really sticks and improves your writing the most. Across history, artists learned through direct imitation of the masters. When you read something more than once, break it down and analyze it, and try to write in imitation of it, you really lock in the information and learn in a way you don’t retain just reading stuff passively. Had to learn to read for writing.

4. Similarly, when stumped, study more. Feeling stuck or “writer’s block” is often a case of simply trying to summon stuff up out of thin air, instead of going out and finding the information you need to move forward. When I haven’t known how to proceed, it was usually because I either didn’t actually know enough about the art of writing a story, or I hadn’t fleshed out my characters, concept, etc. enough to project what would happen next (often a combination of both). Here, studying how other authors have handled an issue is again helpful, as well as becoming more knowledgeable about my limits, what I’m actually capable of writing at this level, etc.

5. General technique stuff. Not gonna list it all out here. Just the base matter you have to accumulate as a beginner, a chaotic blend of information and half-baked ideas and dawning awareness of things you don’t yet understand, which the coming years of further practice will refine into something meaningful.

6. A grounded perspective. Working at a book store has been really helpful to give me a humbling, but also encouraging sense of perspective about the business/publishing side of writing, and who readers are. I’ve seen how books come and go on the shelves, with even great writers eventually circulated off to make way for the new big thing, and it’s made me realize that like everything else in life, the world of books is actually in a constant state of change. Just because someone is big right now doesn’t mean it will last forever, and just because someone is small right now doesn’t mean that, after another twenty years or publishing five more books, they don’t become huge. It’s helped me plan the rest of life accordingly, understanding I won’t be able to make a living writing fiction (at least not any time soon), and to stop seeing the options as “failure” or “famous” and instead as “all you can do is work consistently, love the work itself, and hope for good fortune.” Working with a lot of different readers (coworkers and customers), has also given me a better grasp of audiences, trends, marketing, commerciality, and the need to factor these into writing I want to make money from, when I get to that point.

Maybe I’ll check in again at the end of the year and see what’s changed. I feel like it took me this long just to kind of figure out what my process needed to look like, learning strategies and resources, how to organize my time for this, etc. so hopefully the next six months will show a slightly accelerated progress! 

Books I’ve read so far this year

NB: Many of these I “read”—listened to, actually—thanks in large part to audiobooks via Libby, since many days I have 2-3 hours of cumulative commute time. 

Jeff VanderMeer –  Southern Reach Trilogy (while it remains a trilogy), Hummingbird Salamander, and Borne
Tamsyn Muir – The Locked Tomb trilogy (pending book four)
Asimiov – Left Hand of the Electron
A. K. Larkwood – The Unspoken Name
Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
Aimee Lim – Spindle of Fate
Arkady Martyne – A Memory Called Empire
Sarah J. Maas – A Court of Thorns & Roses
Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone – This Is How You Lose the Time War
Ted Chiang – Exhalation
Sayaka Murata – Convenience Store Woman
Rachel Harrison – Cackle
Ann Leckie – the Imperial Radch trilogy
Hiron Ennes – Leech
Meg Cabot – Enchanted to Meet You
Mira Grant – Kingdom of Needle and Bone
Lisa Jewell – None of This is True
Catriona Ward – Sundial
Gillian Flynn – The Grownup
Melissa Marr – Remedial Magic
Lana Harper – In Charm’s Way
Larry Brooks – Story Engineering
Gwen Hayes – Romancing the Beat
Thich Nhat Hahn – The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
Agustina Bazterrica – Tender is the Flesh
Jack Woodford – Plotting for Every Kind of Writing
Kate Wilhelm – Storyteller
Carlo Rovelli – Helgoland
H. P. Lovecraft – The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Ryu Murakami – Piercing
Ralph Bauer – An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru
Jane Goodall – The Book of Hope

Notes from the Bookstore Sales Floor

Well, as is typical with blogs, I lost all momentum as soon as I announced I was starting one. But I have good reasons for it! I started a new job and several volunteer positions, and have been working intensely on writing–just not blog writing. But now that I’m in the rhythm of things, I want to keep blogging periodically about what I’m learning, starting with a series about insights for writers from the POV of a newbie bookseller.

I started working at Big Name Bookstore (BN for short) recently, as a kind of market research project for which I also get paid 😉 Through this position, I’m getting to learn a bit about the business side of writing and about my (hopefully) future readers.

Already, a number of conversations and observations have shaken the way I think about writing and publishing–in an exciting way! I’d like to write a continuing series of posts, focusing particularly on the romance genre and market. For context, I kicked off this year venturing into the romance genre. My heart is with sci fi/fantasy/speculative fiction, but I wanted to step from writing-as-passion towards writing-as-profession, and I thought a good way to make this leap would be to apprentice in the bestselling genre, and a genre I know nothing about.

I might make another blog post about this topic itself, but after two months, I’m now about 10 chapters, 25,000 words into my first romance novel and having a blast. I do think it’s helped improve my writing to work in a genre I’m not as emotionally attached to, because that distance has allowed for a more objective appraisal of what the book is doing and what it needs to be doing to land with readers. I’m able to focus on technique in the detached, demystified way a beginning artist practices shading spheres and cones before trying to paint a portrait of someone they care about.

Learning to write romance while working at a bookstore with a bunch of romance readers and observing the activity and interests of romance reader customers has been a great learning experience, and I hope to share more lessons, anecdotes, and peculiar insights into the sales side of writing. For now, here’s a couple general observations:

Lesson 1: People still buy a lot of books. And people who buy books, buy a lot of books.

Before working here, I didn’t understand how bookstores are still in business, because I considered myself A Reader, yet hadn’t bought a new book in years (I’m a Libby and Half Price Books diehard). I assumed other people were like me, and no matter how much they love books, had a kneejerk reaction against buying anything brand new at full price. Or got everything off Amazon.

But as it turns out, I’m just a miserable skinflint and not representative of the general population. People buy tons of books. Young people, without as many financial expenses to budget for, spend allowances and first paychecks on books. Teenagers buy simple poetry that speaks to complicated feelings. Manga readers buy each new installation in series (serieses?) that span hundreds of installments. Christians buy Bibles and devotionals. Everyone buys self-help. And romance readers… buy every single romance book on the shelf.

What’s more, although I don’t know the actual numbers, I think there’s probably a statistic like 75% of everyday book sales (ie not counting holiday shopping) come from the same 30% of customers. People who buy books tend to be repeat customers. So it seems to me that if you work to know your readers, to inspire and loyally serve them what they love you for, they will follow you to the end of the earth. So I would think, if you want to make money, make readers.  

Lesson 2: Not all books are set up to succeed, but to every book there may be a season

Before working here, I assumed that if your book got traditionally published, actually put on a real shelf in a real bookstore, that meant you had made it. You’d been immortalized. Now I understand that a great number of important and wonderful books aren’t available at the bookstore—half the books I grew up on, which were fundamental for my development as a person and a writer, just aren’t here anymore. And many of the books that are here, won’t last, or get much out of it.

This starts with the publisher and proceeds down a train of people and practices that can help or hurt a book, and there’s a lot more to a book making it than just being on the shelf. Let’s compare two books, both alike in dignity, and yet one will go big and one will fade into ignominy:

Book one: This book a publishing house has decided to go all-in on marketing. We receive 10+ hardcover copies with expertly designed, eye-catching, rainbow-hued covers, and maybe sprayed edges. The publisher and BN make a deal to promote the book with special editions, signage, a display table, putting it on the book club/monthly recommendation list, etc. Books with 3 or more copies on the shelf, which will include these extra promoted books, get “faced out,” or turned to display the cover rather than the spine, which greatly increases the chance of their being picked up and purchased.

Book two: For whatever reason, the publisher doesn’t want to stake much on this one. They treat it as a throwaway title, one of a number of books they go ahead and try, but don’t expect to make a lot off of. We only receive a single, paperback copy. It won’t be on any eye-catching tables at the front of the store, on lists of must-reads and book club picks, and it won’t even get faced out. It is, in my personal opinion, just as good as Book One. But books are largely sold on everything but the actual writing inside. Right out the gate, this book has been condemned to sell poorly, and after the one copy sells, or hits a certain date, we won’t order any more.

This was an important lesson for me. On the business side of things, it stresses the significance of everything that isn’t writing to the profession of writing. The marketing, in a lot of these cases, is better than the book, and you can probably make more money through good marketing than good writing.

It’s also humbling, on the writer side of things. When you write alone in your room, you can start to dream up all kinds of self-aggrandizing visions; there’s nothing to check them. But when working at the bookstore, keeping vigil by the little books, the ones who have not sold a single copy in their years of sitting there, ushering them over the threshold of death when their time finally comes, you get reality checked. You think, damn, I’m much more likely to be one of these little guys than N.K. Jemisin or Brandon Sanderson.

But this isn’t discouraging. In fact, I find it comforting! I feel at home with the little guys [gender-neutral], I feel a kinship and camaraderie with them, and I can let go of that anxiety to punch above my weight. It’s taught me that you can be successful at whatever level you reach, especially if you study marketing and write to market.

And I see that the shelves are continually in flux, their ancient contents now eroded, and now shored up with new soil. How while this one little book may not last, for this month at least it sits where Ursula Le Guin used to sit! That this manga about a toilet holds the place once occupied by beautifully illustrated narratives like With the Light and Mushishi. It assures me that if I just keep learning and working, I can have my turn, and there is plenty of space and need for good books, and simply new books, even more than great books and immortal books.

I think acknowledging this doesn’t mean setting the bar low for yourself, but appreciating where you’re at along the journey, seeking opportunities appropriate to your level, and being mindful of the other factors that go into success besides the writing itself. 

Thanks for reading! Hope to check in again soon.