Writing Misadventures

Writing for publication: you spend forever writing something that may never get published, and when it does, the money you make (if any) divided by all the time you spent writing and submitting the manuscript equals a few pennies per hour — if even that. The gratification you receive may take years. If someone does love it enough to write fan mail, it usually freaks you out. However, despite all this, the prestige points are very high.

Writing for the web: It takes less than three hours to write a good blog. It’s published instantly. You usually don’t get paid (sometimes you do, but the likelihood is minimal) but you get instant feedback over the next week or so. The gratification is instantaneous. By the next day, you’re already doing something new and equally rewarding. However, despite all this, the prestige points are so low they might even count in the negative, as the publishing world looks at blogging like it’s the contents of a rancid, slimy gutter.

Is prestige important?

Honestly?

You can’t use the argument, “Well, I write novels” (or whatever) “because I simply love writing.” Because if that is the case, you are more likely to have someone read your story if you post it online. Sending it off into the publishing thrasher … well, unless you’re already an established author (and sometimes even if you are) that manuscript may end up in the tomb of the unloved and forgotten.

So if it’s not for the prestige, why bother trying to get it into print? Why not just pop it up on a website?

I’d really like to know.

If you’re in the Dallas area this coming weekend, come watch me stutter and turn red in front of a lot of people. I’m one of the writers featured at this year’s FENCON, a Sci-Fi & Fantasy convention.

Check out all the fun stuff I’ll be doing in front of an audience:

Friday 4:00 PM, “Short Stories Got No Reason…”
I and three other writers will be giving opinions, no doubt stated as fact, about whether or not short stories are still a viable medium.

Friday 5:00 PM, “Podcasts”
How to put together podcasts for fun, profit, promotion, and self-humiliation. Interesting that I’m on this panel. I guess the fact that I’ve kludged together a couple Podcasts makes me an expert at it.

Saturday 10:00 AM, “Roswell – 60 Years of UFOs”
I have never seen a UFO, but then again, I bet no one else on the panel has either.

Saturday 7:00 PM, “Futuretech Feasibility”
Could Warp Drive be invented? Anti-gravity? Twiddle38 (Bill, aka “Aaaaaaaaaaa Puffiboomboom”) and I will be two of the guys giving the bird’s eye low-down on this bit of crystal ball gazing.

Sunday 11:00 AM “Autographs”
Yes, you read that right. You can come get my autograph. Are you excited or what?

Sunday 1:00 PM, “Face-Off: The Difference Between Male and Female Writers”
This is going to be fun. Two guy writers, two gal writers, a big vat of pudding, and NERF weapons.

So come on down! After dark you’ll no doubt see me wandering around drunk off my ass.

You know what I’ve noticed?

Getting a rejection for a story that I consider one of the best ones I’ve ever written sure puts a damper on my enthusiasm for working on a new short story. 

I go through this every time.  “Why do I bother?  I’m wasting my efforts.  I may be mildly clever but not enough to stand above the other three-billion writers vying for the same publishing space.”

Then I have to go vacuum, or wash dishes, or dance around with my iPod, and then come back to write … simply because I love the act of creating.

In the end that’s all a writer can really count on.

My novel has been completely derailed.

Forced off the tracks.

Pushed aside.

By what? A short story idea that has grabbed me and won’t leave me alone. It keeps saying, “Write me! Write ME! WRITE ME NOW!”

“But,” I tell it, “I’m a third the way through writing a novel. I need to concentrate on that.”

“Your freaking novel will still be there when you’re done with me,” it argues back. “Strike while the iron is hot! I’m short! I’m uncomplicated. And … I’m very, very fun.”

My resolve is eroding. Fun is good. Fun sounds like fun.

So, my novel has been derailed by a fun little short story. Let’s hope it really is short.

So I’m riding home from the airport on one of those shared ride busses, and I’m sitting next to a rather dapper looking fellow with a tweed suit and dark rimmed glasses. He has wild curly black hair and a distracted look on his face.

It’s been a long flight. I’m not really in the mood to talk. He doesn’t say anything, so neither do I.

An hour later we arrive at his destination, and he pays the driver with a credit card, and the driver asks, “So you’re a doctor or something?”

“Actually,” he says with a slight Russian accent, “I’m a scientist.”

I’m already kicking myself.

“What, like a nuclear scientist?” the driver asks.

“No, actually I’m a rocket scientist.”

Now I’m really kicking myself. “Darn,” I say, “I’m a science fiction writer! I should have been talking to you all this way!”

He looks at me, mouth open. “You’re a science fiction writer?” he says. “I love science fiction!”

But we’re at his hotel and he has to get off, and the driver has to drive me home. So it was a lost opportunity for both of us.

Lesson learned: Always strike up a conversation with someone you’re sitting next to, because you never know. It might be someone you’re actually interested in talking to.

Anyone having problems sleeping tonight is more than welcome to hang out with me on my second night guarding the spaceship.  I brought my USB camera and am broadcasting live all night (or as long as my WiFi keeps working) on WriterCam.com.

I’m spending the night working on my novel, and fending off those who may try and sabotage the spaceship.  Which, oddly enough, I guess is possible … which is why I’m here.

You’ll never guess what I’m doing.

I’m guarding a spaceship.

I am, right now, sitting in the Crystal Ballroom at the InterContinental Hotel in Dallas, typing away on my buddy Bill’s computer (I brought my little writing machine but, alas, forgot the power cord) and guarding the “Pixel,” a prototype lunar lander developed by Armadillo Aerospace. Apparently its in the contract that there must be someone in the room with the spaceship at all times.

It didn’t say that the person had to be awake, however, and so the hotel thoughtfully has rolled in a bed for me to sleep in.

It’s going to be very weird, sleeping next to a spaceship in the middle of the Crystal Ballroom.