This is a post from last spring, but I’m going to pin it up here at the top of the blog for a few days in light of the present widespread discussion regarding those of us who like to post a list of our award-eligible work.

I started writing this post last fall, and then got distracted. I was inspired to return to it by the thoughtful comments of one my most supportive readers, addressing the relationship between business and art. I’ll be blunt and say that throughout my career I have seen money as a measure of my success and, having never made much money, I’ve never seen myself as a success. I’ve been criticized for this. More than once I’ve been assured that “success” in writing can be defined in many other ways, that I shouldn’t beat myself up over it, that my art will live on. But I remain skeptical.

These days I am both a publisher and a writer. I don’t think anyone will argue when I say that publishing is a business and, with my indie-publishing hat on, I try to treat it that way. I’m willing to invest in my publishing business. I try to pay attention to product presentation and improve things from time to time. I try to get my products into additional markets, to find new ways of presenting what I’ve got, and to add new products to the inventory. I keep the accounts, pay my taxes, and imagine that some day I’ll be able to make a living from all this.

Writing is a business too — just ask the Internal Revenue Service — and I do try to make good business decisions about my writing. For example, it’s a common belief in indie publishing that writing a series of short books is the way to go, and so writing the Puzzle Lands books seemed like a good business decision — and I’m sure sales will begin to prove that right any day now, giving me an excuse to write book 3! 🙂

Returning to short story writing was another business decision. Getting some short stories published is a way for writers to get their names in front of a wider audience — and I was lucky enough to discover that at this stage in my career I really enjoy writing short stories.

But the deeper truth is that I write what I want to write, and I’m no damned good at writing “to the market.”

In late 2011 through early 2012 I wrote a draft of a fantasy novel. This was in part a business decision. The story had a contemporary setting and straightforward plot that I hoped would make it more reader friendly than some of my convoluted science fiction novels. I think it reads well. It’s a decent story. But I’m not in love with it and honestly, it’s not a “Linda Nagata” story, whatever that means. It will likely never be published because it’s not complete and I don’t want to spend anymore time on it, which makes me a spoiled brat I guess, when compared to more disciplined writers, but so what? I’d rather spend my time working on something I love, than on something I can easily walk away from.

So while publishing is a business, for me at least, writing is an art, where “art” has the very specific and non-standard definition of “writing a story that demands to be written, the market be damned.”

I’m not going to judge the relative “value” of my novels, because value is as much in the eye of the beholder as anywhere else. Vast appeals to core hard-SF readers, but leaves many other would-be readers confused. Memory is sometimes called my best novel, but I’ve also seen it described as nothing more than a really long chase sequence.

My newest novel, The Red: First Light, is different from the others in that it’s first person, present tense, written from a male point of view. It’s done in a spare, ironic voice because that’s the way I wanted to tell the story. “Art,” right?

But art is not the opposite of “business.” It’s not the opposite of “commercial.” It’s a different aspect altogether. We are complex creatures, and our projects can have complex purposes. I needed to write The Red: First Light, but I still had it in mind that TR:FL could appeal to readers of technothrillers as well as readers of SF–because experience has taught me that SF readers do not buy my books in sufficient numbers for me to make a living.

Make a living? But if writing is art, why bring up money? It’s been frequently pointed out that if money is the goal, there are more efficient ways of making it than by committing fiction — but you know what? I’m stubborn. I want to make a living writing, and I want to do it writing what I want to write.

Demanding, I know. See the spoiled brat bit above. It is what it is.

A decent return of money means several things to me:
(1) That the art has hit it’s target; that readers in sufficient numbers enjoy the books enough that they are willing to pay for them. Writers do not exist in an emotional vacuum. We want to know that there is a reason for the time and energy spent creating a story–even a story that we really, really want to write.
(2) That I am carrying my own weight, financially. My husband has supported my writing career. This is not a contentious issue between us, but it would be awfully damned nice to be the breadwinner for a change.
(3) Decent sales bring confidence. Confidence helps to get books written. Guilt over not earning money does not help get books written.

Art and business are not the same thing, but for many of us they are interdependent. My goal is to be good at both.

Posted on: Wednesday, April 24th, 2013 at 8:36 pm
Categories: Writing.
Tags: art of writing, business of writing, The Red: First Light