Category Archives: writing

writing

Fascinating info on the biz

Fantasy author Jim Hines conducted a survey of 247 sci-fi and fantasy authors—myself included—on how they broke into the business. The information should be interesting (even encouraging) to anyone trying to make their first professional sale. Here’s the link. This is only part one of several blogs where he’ll break down the data, so stay tuned for more updates.

Many thanks to Jim for putting this together. The numbers show that the self-publishing route is pretty grim; but it also shows that a surprising number of people have broken into the industry without an agent and without a single short story sale.

writing

Short stories take a long time

I can write a thousand words a day on my novel, but for some reason a short story won’t let me write more than 400 words per diem.

I’ve rewritten the first page about three times now.

I’ve changed the title five times and I told the last one not to get too comfortable at the top of the page, because he’s going to get revised like all the others.

I’ve written long descriptions of Flagstaff and then deleted it all because it didn’t advance the plot.

I may need to write a thousand words in HEXED and then tell the short story, “See? This is how you’re supposed to behave. Why can’t you be like a novel?”

Yeah. That’ll show it.