“Not All Those Who Wander are Lost” — JRR Tolkien

On the other hand, some of us are — lost, that is. Oh, I don’t mean that we don’t know where we are in the world, it’s just that we don’t know where we are in the grand scheme of things. But then, maybe there’s a very good reason for that.

Not long ago, in a random conversation, a friend mentioned the name of a race car driver—I have no recollection of why we were discussing race car drivers—but he felt this particular driver was a natural. “He was born to drive race cars.”

You hear this expression all the time. “He was born to be a blogger.” “She was born to climb mountains.” Or sing arias, or be a politician, or be an engineer… The expression indicates the perfect convergence of inborn skills and inclination, with a challenging task or a creative endeavor. When you’re “born to do something” the least encouragement will launch you on a lifelong mission to gather the necessary skills, to make the contacts, and to meet the mentors who will help you along the way to becoming a master of your craft. It’s synchronicity in action, and a glorious thing to witness.

But when my friend mentioned this man who was born to drive race cars, I found myself replying, “It’s lucky for him he wasn’t born in, say, 1602.” Which led me to wonder: What if the race car driver had been born in 1602? Then he never would have found his ideal life’s task. What would he have done instead? What do all those people do who just happen to not be born at the right time (or the right place or in the right circumstances) to discover and find fulfillment in their ideal life’s task?

At a guess I’d say a lot of them wander through life trying their hand at different things without ever truly meshing with any of them. Do you know any people like that? Are you someone like that? Hesitantly, I raise my own hand.

All through college I thought I wanted to be a wildlife biologist, then I wanted to be a writer, then I spent nine years as a programmer. Now I’m a writer again, but I’m also a publisher, and this combination makes me feel like I’m as close as I’ve ever come to the thing I was “born to do.” And still…I can’t escape a nagging suspicion that there is or was or will be something else for which I would be ideally suited—or maybe some of us are just never satisfied?

As for those of you who know why you’re here, realize that we envy you. And please don’t take it the wrong way when we wander around in middle age saying things like “Someday I’ll grow up and figure out what I really want to be.” We’re not trying to be annoying; it’s just that we really don’t know.

Yes, of course. I sit down to a brainstorming session, determined to write for ten whole minutes without stopping, to see what sort of ideas might pour forth. I even set my alarm.

Five minutes later I hear a pheasant squawking almost right outside my window. Naturally, I just have to go and look.

Ring-necked pheasants are common in the pastures in Kula, where I live, but they don’t visit the neighborhood around our house. There was once a Kalij pheasant that hung out in our neighborhood for a few days, but never the more common ringneck — until today.

I’ve been trying to get a pheasant photo for two years, so I grabbed my camera and, moving with great caution, I leaned out the door and started shooting. Okay, so it’s not great photography, but a pheasant standing on a chainlink fence? That’s got to be an unusual pose.

Last spring (for those who haven’t been following this blog) I self-published a short, quirky fantasy novel called The Dread Hammer, putting it out in both ebook and print versions. I had three main reasons for self-pubbing: the book didn’t slot well into any typical subgenre category, it was short for a traditionally published novel, and it had been so long since I’d had anything original published that I didn’t want to wait years to get this book out, which would have been the case if I’d taken it to the traditional market.

Sales were slow, and in hindsight I think I made a mistake publishing it under a pen name. (That mistake will be corrected shortly, when I re-issue the book under my own name.) At any rate, by August I was finishing up the first draft of a sequel, titled Hepen the Watcher, just as talk in the indie publishing community was shifting to the idea of a hybrid career that takes advantage of both traditional and indie publishing. I love indie publishing, but I’m willing to try different approaches. So I started thinking seriously about taking both The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher to market.

In the end I decided against it. The two main reasons: Everything I’ve read and heard indicates that most advances are very low, and that contract terms are often horrible.

I write novels, it’s my nature to tell myself stories, and here’s the story I told myself on what would happen if I took these two books to market:

Months will pass before you hear anything. Maybe you will eventually get requests for the complete manuscripts. If so, more months will pass before you get a decision. Maybe you’ll get an offer. It will be low. Maybe you’ll consider it. Then the contract will come. It will have terms you cannot accept. Months of negotiations will ensue. In the end, neither you nor the publisher can agree on terms. You will walk away, and publish the book yourself.

During this time I knew I’d be feeling frustrated, angry, and resentful. I won’t argue if that’s appropriate; I just know it’s true. I like being in control of my books, and I’m not in control if I’m waiting desperately on a publisher to tell me if I have a future. As I told my husband, Why should I make myself miserable?

The other blow against taking these two books to market is my past experience that books do not earn out. This isn’t true for all writers at all times of course, but it’s been my experience, and it’s the same for many, many other traditionally published writers. Publishers are in the business of selling books, and sometimes they manage spectacularly, but quite often, they don’t. So I would have to be okay with giving up these books, possibly in perpetuity, for whatever small advance I might be offered. In contrast, if I published them myself there would be no advance, but if my work ever “hits” with readers, the potential upside is big. This is important to me. I’m far less concerned with having an “immediate” advance in my pocket (and “immediate” is a relative term in publishing), than with having a steady income over the long term, and the only way I see to have that steady income is to keep writing and keep control over my work, and hope that I eventually “hit.”

And that’s why neither book has gone to the traditional market. At this point, indie publishing looks like the best option to me.

I was feeling good about my choice, but I’m feeling even better now. Kris Rusch has a blog post just up titled “Writers: Will Work For Cheap” that confirms my rationale for staying indie, at least for now. Of course it makes perfect sense that my thought processes reflect what Kris has to say in her business blog, given that I’m an avid reader. (Yes, I’ve donated, and yes, I’ve bought The Freelancers Survival Guide.) I find The Business Rusch to be one of the most useful sites on the web for writers interested in a career. If you’re a writer and you’re not reading it . . . well, why not?

…and the value of writer support groups

Long ago, when the Internet was young and an overabundance of email was never a problem, I returned home from a vacation to find over twenty messages in my inbox. This was unheard of! And I knew at once that something was up.

What had happened was that the young and upcoming science fiction writer, Wil McCarthy, had decided to pull together a group of other writers who were still early in their careers, for the purpose of mutual support and information exchange. The queue of emails reflected an enthusiastic response from the invited writers. The last email in the queue was from Wil, saying something like “Well, we haven’t heard from Linda, so I guess she’s not interested.” To which I replied instantaneously with “Yes, I am interested! I just haven’t been home!”

Hooking up with this little group of writers was one of the best things that ever happened to me, as a writer. Yes, I learned an incredible amount, but just having friends who understood, who I could turn to when things went wrong in the business—that was invaluable, especially to me, living in isolation from other writers out here in the middle of the Pacific. I’m sure it’s the same for many who live in small towns. Finding people who share your passion can make all the difference, and I encourage all writers, especially if you’re just starting out, to find your team, your support group. You won’t regret it.

In my group we often served as beta readers for one another (although I don’t think the term “beta reader” had actually been invented yet). So I had the opportunity to read Wil’s novel Bloom in manuscript. I honestly don’t remember what I said about it, but in the acknowledgements, Wil thanks me and Kathleen Ann Goonan “for not pulling punches.” Hmm….

At any rate, Bloom was published in 1998 to terrific reviews, and it was a New York Times “Notable Book.” Its premise is that a runaway nanotechnology has destroyed all life as we know it on Earth and has made the inner solar system uninhabitable, leaving people to survive in small pockets among the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter.

Perhaps inspired by a need to stroll down memory lane, I pulled Bloom off my shelf a few days ago and started reading. I finished it last night, and I have to say, I’m more impressed than ever by this book. If you’re into hard science fiction, I encourage you to grab a sample and give Bloom a try.

I’m glad I can say “grab a sample.” I did not know this before I sat down to write this post, but it looks like Bloom was re-published as an ebook only a little over a week ago. Here’s the Amazon link. Enjoy!

As an addendum, I should add that after many years our group finally drifted apart, as most of us moved on to other ventures, but I still think fondly of everyone involved.

Kate Elliott has a terrific post up on the value of word-of-mouth publicity to a struggling writer. As an example of a book worth talking about, she uses Martha Well’s The Cloud Roads, which I read (and loved) only because Kate recommended it. Clear proof that word of mouth does work!

Kate concludes with:

One of the great things about the new world of social media is how easy it now is to talk about books with other book lovers. So don’t be shy: Talk up the books you love.

But go read the whole post–and check out The Cloud Roads!

The title of this post pretty much says it: my short fiction collection is now at Book View Café. There’s also a sample story up, “Spectral Expectations,” which is the first piece of fiction I ever sold.

Both EPUB and MOBI versions are available at a cost of $3.95.

Included stories:
Spectral Expectations (Analog 1987)
Career Decision (Analog 1988)
In the Tide (Analog 1989)
Small Victories (Analog 1993)
Liberator (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1993)
Old Mother (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1995)
The Bird Catcher’s Children (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1997)
Hooks, Nets, and Time (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1997)
The Flood (More Amazing Stories 1998)
Goddesses (Sci-Fi.com 2000)

Last year on January 1st I published my list of writing goals for the year, and a few days ago I assessed how I did. Some of my goals were less successful than I’d hoped, some more so, and some simply changed over the course of the year. Overall, I think I did fine, and I enjoyed having a list of concrete goals to work toward.

Recently, Dean Wesley Smith blogged on the difference between goals and dreams and I highly recommend you read what he has to say. In short, a goal is something you can control and complete by your own perseverance, while a dream is something that depends on the cooperation of another, or of fate…which is why you won’t see any sales goals in the list below. I can’t control sales, but if things go well, I can produce books and stories.

So here are the writing projects I’m hoping to do in 2012:

1. The Dread Hammer, published in 2011, is the first book in the series I’m now calling Stories of the Puzzle Lands. Early in 2012 I plan to re-publish it with a new cover, and shortly after that publish the second book, Hepen the Watcher, in ebook and print versions.

2. Finish two original novels. Of the two I have in mind, neither are related to anything I’ve done before or to each other. One is already 20,000 words along and one is in concept stage.

3. Finish four pieces of short fiction, with short fiction being defined as any story less than novel length (but trying really hard for true short stories 7500 words and less).

4. Consult with a professional editor on the potential and direction of my long-evolving novel The Wild, and either bring it to fruition or put it away permanently—though I’m not sure the latter is possible. This is definitely the book I can’t let go of.

Bonus Points
If I get these first four goals done, I’ll be happy, but a really productive year would include initiating two more books, at least in concept if not in actual word count. One would be a third volume of Stories of the Puzzle Lands. The other is just a vague notion, hovering well out there on my mental horizon, but maybe it’s time to contemplate another book in The Nanotech Succession.

And that’s all I’m going to commit to!

I’ll check back here at the end of the year to see how I did. In the meantime, what are you planning for 2012? Let me know–I love to hear from you.