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Fiction writing advice: how do I lead a fulfilling life? e: appropriate new page post
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Aug 20, 2014 02:19
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| # ? May 14, 2024 17:52 |
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PoshAlligator posted:Fiction writing advice: how do I lead a fulfilling life? Step 1. Don't be a writer.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:28
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I hate that I love writing. Also that I still mostly suck at it. I want my James Patterson lifestyle
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Aug 20, 2014 05:36
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PoshAlligator posted:Fiction writing advice: how do I lead a fulfilling life?
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Aug 20, 2014 12:03
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That is what is best in life. As you can see in the final minutes of Conan the Barbarian, crushing Thulsa-Doom did not fulfill Conan at all.
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Aug 20, 2014 15:05
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Aug 20, 2014 18:12
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My short story "Swaying in the Wind" is in a Canadian magazine now, which is okay I guess. It can be read digitally here, and I mention Thunderdome in the bit she asked us to write about inspiration, but not by name and now I feel really guilty I just didn't think guys I'm sorry.
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Aug 20, 2014 18:56
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PoshAlligator posted:My short story "Swaying in the Wind" is in a Canadian magazine now, which is okay I guess. It can be read digitally here, and I mention Thunderdome in the bit she asked us to write about inspiration, but not by name and now I feel really guilty I just didn't think guys I'm sorry. Which one is it, you didn't sign it with your username for some weird reason 
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Aug 20, 2014 19:16
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General Battuta posted:Which one is it, you didn't sign it with your username for some weird reason pp. 16-17 The cover of the magazine seems to be inspired by it too which is kind of neat... maybe.
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Aug 20, 2014 19:37
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OH I SEE DON'T GIVE ME ANY CREDIT FOR THAT AWESOME PROMPT
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Aug 20, 2014 20:27
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crabrock posted:OH I SEE DON'T GIVE ME ANY CREDIT FOR THAT AWESOME PROMPT You're just the ideas, man.
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Aug 20, 2014 20:48
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crabrock, how does it feel to inspire so many people on such a grand scale? add a section to the TD archives for "inspirations leading to publication" and put yourself on the top of the list
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Aug 20, 2014 20:52
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Crabrock is very much my mentor.
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Aug 20, 2014 21:07
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Does anyone know of any online portal that'd pay for short stories and the like? I'm a damned moron who sees his current avatar as motivation instead of the rightful condemnation that it is, and I want to try to get a job where I can be paid for doing something I love, and male pornstar was taken.
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Aug 21, 2014 09:38
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CommissarMega posted:Does anyone know of any online portal that'd pay for short stories and the like? I'm a damned moron who sees his current avatar as motivation instead of the rightful condemnation that it is, and I want to try to get a job where I can be paid for doing something I love, and male pornstar was taken. CommissarMega and Writing – A Love Story  Actual advice: Stop playing video games and start writing before you think about getting paid for it. Start writing. START WRITING
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Aug 21, 2014 10:52
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Vija games are fine, as long as they don't cut into your writing time. You can even use them as inspiration if you're stuck (skyrim for fantasy, aliens for sci-fi, GTA for redneck erotica etc). Also, they fulfil an important motivational role in our psychology, or so vSauce claims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5jDspIC4hY The caveat is that you need to be writing an absolute bare minimum of 2k words a day if you want to consider yourself a writer.
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Aug 21, 2014 12:31
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The caveat is that you need to be writing an absolute bare minimum of 2k words a day if you want to consider yourself a writer. Stephen King doesn't have this high a minimum.
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Aug 21, 2014 13:17
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The caveat is that you need to be writing an absolute bare minimum of 2k words a day if you want to consider yourself a writer. Haha yeah ok dude, I think that only applies to the self-pub sweatshops where they need to churn out fifteen novels in an "I hosed a Billionaire" series before they can make enough cash to buy a medium pizza.
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Aug 21, 2014 13:43
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Fine then, 'when starting out.'
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Aug 21, 2014 14:01
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2k words per day is perpetual NaNoWriMo mode!
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Aug 21, 2014 14:11
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Stephen King doesn't have this high a minimum. That's his specified minimum in On Writing. I don't have an opinion on words per day, but time per day. I do two hours minimum, and sometimes I get very little actual work done, but as long as I stay focused during that period, at least contemplating my story and characters, I count it as a day of progress. On a good day I write about 8 pages of my book.
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Aug 21, 2014 14:20
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I'd say that for a developing writer, one still working on his craft and his discipline, going for 2k a week is a reasonable goal. Starting out at 2k a day is like trying to run a marathon without doing any training or preparation.
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Aug 21, 2014 14:22
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Writing tip: don't not write.
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Aug 21, 2014 14:24
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CommissarMega posted:Does anyone know of any online portal that'd pay for short stories and the like? I'm a damned moron who sees his current avatar as motivation instead of the rightful condemnation that it is, and I want to try to get a job where I can be paid for doing something I love, and male pornstar was taken. Also, seriously? Actual Writers You've Heard Of don't make it just by writing. It's a long, long road to getting a writing job. Also, Short Story Writer ain't a job unless you're one of two people in the country. Can anyone guess who?
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Aug 21, 2014 14:26
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Nobody makes a living with short stories, but if you're doing it reliably the money isn't terrible. Five cents a word for say, 6k is 300$. If you're Ken Liu or one of those guys you can make a little money while you work on something longer. Anyway people love giving advice about writing and while most of it is technically correct (You should write and read a lot), they aren't set in stone. I've only written about 20 stories in my life and I managed to sell a few of them. I don't write 2k words a day by any stretch of the imagination.
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Aug 21, 2014 18:12
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ravenkult posted:Nobody makes a living with short stories, but if you're doing it reliably the money isn't terrible. Five cents a word for say, 6k is 300$. If you're Ken Liu or one of those guys you can make a little money while you work on something longer. Sales are so rare and so utterly erratic, even if you're Ken Liu, that I don't think the money can be called anything but 'terrible'. On a good year you might bring home a thousand dollars from short stories. I suppose they're not taxed - so probably more than that. But not much! As for this 2k idea, I doubt I was averaging 2k a day even when I was on my full-time write-a-book sprint. I could be wrong: I didn't keep track. But I wouldn't fuss over that number as some kind of qualification to be a Real Writer who can achieve success. I think it's much more important to find a way to keep writing joyful and satisfying, even in the face of rocky external conditions.
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Aug 21, 2014 18:18
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General Battuta posted:Sales are so rare and so utterly erratic, even if you're Ken Liu, that I don't think the money can be called anything but 'terrible'. On a good year you might bring home a thousand dollars from short stories. I suppose they're not taxed - so probably more than that. But not much! It's not even worth arguing about, really, but Liu sold 20 stories in 2013. Between the original sale, from 5 and up to 15 cents a word (for a few rare markets), the Chinese reprints, any US reprints from older stories and inclusion in Best of anthologies, he probably made a lot more than 1k. But yeah, it's not a lot of money. Still, authors like Valente seem to enjoy some success with short story collections.
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Aug 21, 2014 18:28
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You're right, that is pretty good, and I'd forgotten about reprints, which are excellent money. I stand corrected.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:24
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Well, the point stands. There is only one Ken Liu and even 3000$ isn't enough to make a living.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:42
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ravenkult posted:Well, the point stands. There is only one Ken Liu and even 3000$ isn't enough to make a living. It's strange that there's not a bigger short story market. It seems like the sort of thing that would interact well with the internet. In a way, writing short stories is kind of like an internship. It's poo poo pay, but you make connections and build a reputation, so that you can finally break into something that's marginally more profitable.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:07
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I mean it depends on what you are writing, too. I remember someone linking info from self-pubbing that showed short literary fiction was basically a wasteland in terms of money, with sci-fi and fantasy doing a touch better but still nowhere close to being able to make a living, YA being a bit better than that (but still abysmal all things considered), and erotica having the potential to make absolute assloads of money for people that are prolific. So yeah, basically unless you are pumping out tons of erotica, short fiction is probably not ever going to be anything more than beer money. I am curious, in the case of someone like Ken Liu, I wonder if it would be possible to squeeze out a living if you wanted to sell yourself hard enough. Like speaking fees, books on writing, etc. I don't know how much of a market there is for any of that, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a good number of potential ways to make money that could add up. I imagine at the end of the day it would probably be pretty soul-crushing, though, if it's even possible.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:11
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George Saunders is one of the ones I was thinking of. He's published four books of short stories, won tons of prizes, and is very well known name. I'm pretty sure he is still a teacher, though. I'm completely stuck on my novel after about 120 pages, so I'm going back and making an outline about everything leading up to this point to hopefully get a better handle on the story and what should happen next. Previously I've been just winging it, but I think it's time to bring some structure into the mix. blue squares fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 20:13
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I mean it depends on what you are writing, too. I remember someone linking info from self-pubbing that showed short literary fiction was basically a wasteland in terms of money, with sci-fi and fantasy doing a touch better but still nowhere close to being able to make a living, YA being a bit better than that (but still abysmal all things considered), and erotica having the potential to make absolute assloads of money for people that are prolific. Self-publish book "How to Make Money Writing". ^^^ Sounds like a good plan. Never underestimate bringing in structure after winging writing. Then never be afraid to go back and structure it again differently later. After a first draft maybe structure it again. Be loose with your structure like this or 1) you'll never write anything because you're bored or 2) it will be boring. PoshAlligator fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 20:15
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:
There's no real reason for it. If you can pump out short stories, you can probably write a novel too. Why slave away on short fiction? Some people are big in their genres, mostly because of their short fiction, like say Laird Barron (he has written novels, but his collections sell well too). But it's hard, depends on niches and writing style.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:18
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ravenkult posted:There's no real reason for it. If you can pump out short stories, you can probably write a novel too. Why slave away on short fiction? Some people are big in their genres, mostly because of their short fiction, like say Laird Barron (he has written novels, but his collections sell well too). But it's hard, depends on niches and writing style. Novels take a while, so the way I understand most people do it is to continue keeping new content popping out inbetween your novels so people stay interested. If you're moderately successful of course. What I'm saying is yeah, everyone writing short stories, that's rad, but you should have some sort of novel ticking away somewhere if you want money. What I'm really saying is someone please give me some money.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:34
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Another reason for publishing short stories I've heard about from a published writer/English professor friend: so you can publish a short story collection later.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:39
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Keromaru5 posted:Another reason for publishing short stories I've heard about from a published writer/English professor friend: so you can publish a short story collection later. Except those don't really sell. I'd love to see some figures on short story collections by super famous authors vs. what they're known for. I bet even for them it's a fair amount below their novels. I don't know why. It's kind of dumb. I don't think short stories really have that market appeal for the common reader outside of erotica/romance because that's primarily the way that genre is presented anyway.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:41
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Single author collections are the worst selling of any kind of book, in my experience. Even anthologies are better.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:48
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ravenkult posted:Single author collections are the worst selling of any kind of book, in my experience. Even anthologies are better. Not counting super-popular-huge-name authors yeah like definitely. I think it's because anthologies, with a good theme, can be marketed around that. If there's an anthology about, I don't know, laser gorillas, then people might pick it up based on that, the neat idea and the presentation, even if the stories are only mediocre. Just an author anthology doesn't really have much to go on besides it's that author. I've applied for a couple of publishing jobs lately. I love writing so I want to be able to make a career at least around it to pay bills while I write.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:51
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| # ? May 14, 2024 17:52 |
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True fact: The only way to become a Real Writer is to post endlessly in a fiction advice thread about the magical daily wordcount you should reach and how much money you should make to qualify for entrance into the exclusive Real Writer's Club all those published authors keep talking about. 2k a day written in the blood of a virgin or you don't get in, and no publisher will ever take you seriously because they'll know you don't write twelve novels each year. On a serious note, since maybe someone else subbed there recently: does Daily Science Fiction normally not send a rejection notice? I wanted to print out my first serious rejection and thumbtack it to the wall all fancy-like but all I got was a status change on the website.  I know they must be busy, but it seems lazy.
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Aug 21, 2014 23:31
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