Worldcon Report
August 22nd, 2018I didn’t win a Hugo.
Those of you who follow this blog will know that I had a work on the Hugo ballot for the first and only time in the thirty-one years since my first published story.
“The Martian Obelisk†was on the short story ballot, and enough people went out of their way during the convention to tell me how much they’d liked it (and that they’d voted for it!) that I dared to think just maybe…
Alas for me, it was not to be. The honor went to Rebecca Roanhorse for her story “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™†which you can read at Apex Magazine. Huge congratulations to Rebecca, who also won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. What a night! And what a great way to start off a career!
Thank you, thank you, to everyone who read, supported, voted for, or just had good thoughts about “The Martian Obelisk.†You are appreciated!
The Convention
I rarely go to conventions. I attended Worldcon 76 because of the Hugo nomination and because it was an easy distance from home – a nonstop flight direct from Maui to San Jose. (That turned out not quite as planned. Ask me about it sometime.)
I’m not very good at conventions. I’m one of those who has difficulty with facial recognition and it can take me a while to work out the identity of people I’ve met before but haven’t seen in a while – which gets really embarrassing. And I don’t do all that well in crowds.
Nevertheless, there were a lot of positive aspects to Worldcon 76.
I really enjoyed all my panels. The moderators were fantastic every time, the discussions were interesting, and the audiences were wonderful. Jonathan Brazee oversaw the military SF panel to a room so packed that people were sitting on the floor by the panelists’ table (don’t tell the fire marshal). The near-future panel, moderated by John Scalzi, was in a larger room, but the audience more than filled it anyway.
In the past I’ve generally been rather nervous speaking on panels, but for some reason I felt relaxed this time and I had a lot of fun. I hope I said some interesting things. 🙂
My third panel took a look at some of the differences between self and traditional publishing – the advantages and disadvantages of each – and this also went well thanks to moderator SL Huang.
In addition, I had a well-attended “Literary Beer†in which I met with interested folk and just chatted, answering questions on my work and the writing business. This took place in a very noisy bar, not a good venue for talking, but we had a good time anyway.
Thank you to everyone who attended my signing! I put my signature on a lot of the recent anthologies where my stories have appeared. I signed only a few copies of the novels. 🙁
You might remember an earlier post in which I listed the books I was bringing to sell at the SFWA Book Depot. Only a few of those actually sold. I was quite disappointed, but then, that happens a lot. 🙁 Anyway, Ron suggested I give the books away at my signing, so we wouldn’t have to carry them home, where they would just continue to sit in a closet. So that’s what I did! People seemed happy to have them. A few gave me some cash. I hope y’all enjoy them.
Here’s an observation from my signing that might get me in trouble, but I’d really like to understand this: Of all the people who came to my signing, one, or maybe two at most, were women. It’s obvious that great numbers of women read science fiction. Recent years have left no doubt about that. But wow, I sure would like to see more women interested in my fiction. Hell, I’d like to see more of everyone interested in my fiction! But what else can I do?
The pat answer to that is “Write the next book.†I’ve got two novels that I’m working on. Sadly, they likely won’t be published this year, as I’d planned. The work is just going too slowly.
A lot of writers talk about the “convention bounce.†They come home feeling energized, full of inspiration and ideas. I’m not feeling that. On the self-pub/traditional panel author Wesley Chu made the point that if you don’t love to write, if you’re not having fun with it, then why do it? A fair question, one that annoyed me at the time because I’ve rarely had fun writing, and I’ve even more rarely seen a reasonable financial return from it. But since then, I’ve thought a lot about this. I’ve asked myself why I keep writing, and the answer always seems to come out to something like “What else would I do?†And that’s not a good reason.
I’ve worked hard at writing for many years. So have thousands of other writers. But success isn’t tied to hard work, it isn’t tied to innovative work, or to excellent writing. It isn’t even necessarily tied to persistence, though many people will tell you that it is. All of those things help to increase your odds, of course. But it’s a tough business by any measure.
I think for me, the way forward is to step back for a while from the business end of things. To stop believing that more promotion, more push, more marketing, more sales, more newsletters, are going to save my ass. Yes, all that activity has brought results, but not on a par with the effort put into these things. Meanwhile, writing has become ever harder for me.
I feel I’ve done good, respectable work over the years. I want to keep writing respectable work. But maybe I need to give up on the idea of this as a career and begin to think of it more as a hobby, an avocation, something done because I want to do it…because I enjoy it…because I enjoy creating the kind of stories that I want to read…and if a handful of readers love them too, cool.
Eventually I’ll have to find a source of income, but you know what? We’ve got a cat-5 hurricane lurking in the neighborhood, so that takes precedence. I’ll worry about all of this after that threat has passed.
Keep reading!
Posted on: Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 at 8:09 am
Categories: Writing, Writing Life.
Tags: The Martian Obelisk, Worldcon 76
August 22nd, 2018 at 10:17 am
From your post, it looks like you are asking permission to have fun writing, rather than worry about making money(BTDT, don’t have the t-shirt. Over time, it fell apart in the wash and is now in the rag bag. HA!).
– Writing is a “career”, whether you make money at it or not.
My dad was the most creative person I ever knew. He did stuff that still amazes me. Yet, if those projects didn’t make money, he dropped them and moved on to the next. When he did start making money, he would say, “Why are these people paying all this money for something that cost dollars in material and a brief time shaping the work.”
– He was not happy when the project did not make money, or when it did make money. Tying money to the work poisoned what he was doing.
When my mom retired on disability, she started quilting. She made the mistake of working for a store that paid by the inch of stitching the quilt. When she stopped because the joy was gone from the work, she felt shame, and felt that she had to apologize to us. After she quit doing the work for money, she produced a vast number of projects, often winning awards. She constantly took classes in different styles. If she enjoyed the new style she would expand to a wall hanging or full size bed blanket to fully embrace what she had learned. She was even President on the NM Quilters Association a few times.(Clearly a subversive group. Look at what those women got up to. HA!)
In the Long Ago and Far Away, I sold a fun short story to an anthology, so that I could get into SFWA. That year of access to the club was enough to convince me that the organization was too toxic: all success was based on money, and everybody was tearing each other down in their fear of falling lower in the pecking order. I was chased off as much by that mindset as from my asking for help and being attacked for it. At the time, the various magazines wanted to use e-rights without paying for them. I wanted SFWA to force the magazines to pay for those e-rights. My stack of finished short stories was climbing. I had 26 stories ready to send out and I wasn’t about to lose the future e-rights. I knew that ebooks were the future. The flame wars calling me a pirate were amazing when I pointed that out, but I digress.
I kept Story to myself since there was no outlet to publish at the time. Did my time at the Highway Department, then retired. When I set out to Indy publish, it was a joy, because I did not have to please the gatekeepers trying to make money on my stuff. I did not have to jump through hoops to attract an agent, or lose all rights for pennies from Legacy Publishers. I was not taking space from others who needed to get into the magazines. The books cost dollars to produce, will sit in the system for years. I can build up a vast Story of many books, always in print. This is my time, my fun project. I don’t need to get anyone’s permission, and I keep money out of the equation.
– Stop tying money to your success and you will have more fun in your career.
Tell stories that you want to read. Build up a body of work that tears people to shreds when they read your stuff(So far that’s is what your stories do to me. HA!).
BTW, Neal Stephenson wrote about writers being Dante v Beowulf, Literary v Commercial.
2) The lack of respect… – by MosesJones
https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-responds-with-wit-and-humor
There should now be a third group. Indy writers who do not depend on gatekeepers for a living. I just don’t know what to call them yet. HA!
August 22nd, 2018 at 11:41 am
I am not asking for permission. I’m not looking for advice. I’m sharing some thoughts, and letting those who’ve been waiting patiently for the next book know that I’ve stumbled.
Everyone has a different story and a different relationship with success. I’m glad you’re happy with what you’re doing, but I’m sitting in a different chair, in a different room, in a different context. Please remember that I’m not a kid. I’m not new at this. I’ve spent years in both indie and traditional publishing. I’ve built up a large body of work. I know the standard advice and I’ve tried a lot of angles.
By the way, I’ve never had such a negative experience with SFWA. I’ve found it a very supportive organization, staffed by caring people, and recommend it to all SFF writers.
Now, back to hurricane prep.
August 22nd, 2018 at 1:45 pm
Aloha from Hilo (where it’s raaaaaaaining as I type this but no wind yet).
I admire your work. When I read The Last Good Man (most of it on a yucky turbulent United flight between LAX and Hilo, one of those stupid 737s that appears to be made out of aluminum foil), I realized it was one of the first times I could claim to have read a book with a protagonist who was my age and with my level of complications in life.
It’s taken me a while, but I have actually made some life changes based on reading the book (which I bought and have on my Kindle). I have made some different decisions at both my main job and my side hustle, and I have re-started a creative endeavor that I had let drop. Also, sometime in the next year I’ll be starting a YouTube channel aimed at women my (our?) age who are trying to live frugally in the midst of the strangeness that is middle age.
It’s so strange, there are so few voices out there telling our stories, and we kind of whisper them to each other half-apologetically. I’m so glad you wrote The Last Good Man – and left it with such an uncomfortable ending. At our age, nothing gets a pat, easy conclusion.
Thanks again, and I wish you the best as you move forward with writing/life/not having your roof blown off.
August 22nd, 2018 at 1:48 pm
This is lovely. Your entire blog is lovely. Really honest and heartening.
Also, your novels kick ass. Anthology shmanthology; I would’ve asked you to sign the five I own.
August 22nd, 2018 at 5:51 pm
Aloha from Yokohama, Japan. We are waiting on a typhoon here too.
You have been one of the writers I watch since Vast knocked my socks off way back when. (Read most of your oeuvre except the fantasy books. Memory and Goddesses bought and in the TBR stack.) So, I selfishly hope you will continue writing.
As for enjoying your work, I can only speak from my own experience. I have rarely ‘enjoyed’ what I do (been in the trenches in the tech-writing business for many years), but I take considerable satisfaction from work well done.
Anyway, as the bard once said, “Keep on chooglin'”.
August 22nd, 2018 at 7:43 pm
Amy, thanks so much for all kind words and thoughts. When I decided True was going to be my protagonist–a middle-aged woman– I shook my head and wondered why I insist on making things hard on myself. No regrets, though! And stay dry!
Alex, thank you! I truly appreciate it.
Clyde, you stay dry too. A lot of typhoons have been rolling your way, haven’t they? Thanks also for this–“but I take considerable satisfaction from work well done.” That describes how I feel about my work and I need to keep it in mind.
August 23rd, 2018 at 6:25 am
I have been an avid SF reader since grade school, and consumed all the classics from Asimov, Heinlein, Clark, and even Edgar Rice Burroughs. Now in my 70s, I believe that you, Ms Nagata are a truly gifted artist, and your body of work has continued to improve and mature over your career, especially with the Red series and The Last Good Man. I can’t imagine why that excellent novel didn’t garner more recognition. I am a fan, and hope you can find as much happiness and joy in writing as I do in reading your work.
August 23rd, 2018 at 7:24 am
Thanks so much, Bill! For a short time, I thought The Last Good Man might be my breakout novel. Oh well! 🙂 There’s still a lot I’d like to do – and so many books I want to read!
August 23rd, 2018 at 9:29 pm
I grew up with science fiction: a few decades immersed in Astounding/Analog, Galaxy, F&SF… In my opinion, you’re certainly among the finest SF writers in the world at the moment.
Over the last couple of years, I took detours into all genres of mainstream fiction, to see how the ‘other half’ lives. If any literature can be accused of being ‘escapist’, it’s that.
Your stories are Important. That immediately distinguishes them from nearly everything else out there: real problems, moral dilemmas, never fluff. (And they’re so well crafted – much more than merely ‘written’!)
While I’m rather dismayed that The Last Good Man wasn’t even nominated for a Hugo, when it comes to awards, I go with Feynman: “I don’t see that it makes any point that someone in the Swedish academy just decides that this work is noble enough to receive a prize — I’ve already gotten the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding a thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it — those are the real things. The honors are unreal to me. I don’t believe in honors.”
August 24th, 2018 at 9:03 am
Amir, thanks so much for the kind words! The real value of awards is that they can bring notice to authors who might not have gotten a lot of prior publicity, though of course you have to get a lot of publicity to be on the radar for something like the Hugo awards, so it’s a bit of a puzzle. Anyway, there were great works across the ballot this year.
I too occasionally cross the divide into mainstream fiction, but I usually end up reading a thriller. Hooray for genre fiction! 🙂