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Neo-pro Interview: Steve Stewart

stevenrstewart_portrait — Interview with Steve Stewart

Who are you? What’s your genre/history/etc?

Steve: I was a weird kid; the worst part was, I didn’t know I was weird. It took me a long time to realize that when a teacher holds up a picture of a one-humped camel in a kindergarten class, you’re not supposed to say “dromedary.” When the school asks students for their input designing the new playground, they want you to draw a tornado slide, tire swings, a seesaw; basically anything but an interconnected network of cloud-shaped tree houses with foam harpoon guns.

I was scared of the dark. It was like a chalkboard where I could sketch my primal fears as big as my suffocating imagination could make them. I was the kid asking for doors to be left open a crack, for closets to be checked. I was the kid running up the stairs with the basement darkness nipping at my heels, clutching the jar of canned peaches my mom had asked for to my chest. I was also the kid begging my dad to tell me just one more scary story. The more something scared me, the more I wanted to tell stories about it, draw it, dig down deep and figure it out.

Maybe I’m still doing this.

These days, I have a wife and two little girls who blow my mind every single day, and I spend five nights a week away from them chasing this writing thing. It’s a life that doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, but I’ve found incredible fulfillment in it. Searching for true things and lying about them creatively is a hell of a job. It’s the only one I want.

I write speculative fiction of all kinds, but it tends to be visual and character-driven. Love stories creep into almost everything I write, and I’m starting to wonder if I might be, at least in part, a closeted romance writer. (I never went through the I-don’t-like-girls stage.) Most of what I’ve sold has been sci-fi, but I would like to write and sell more horror. I have soft spot for mysteries as well, and I’d love to sell a novel to Hard Case Crime someday. We’ll see what happens.

What’s your Race score? (1 pt for every short story out to market, 3 points for every novel query (1 per novel only), 8 points for every full (once per novel only also) )

Steve: Shit. You’ve got me. I’m at that weird place where I’m just beginning to sell, so I have a pile of stories in my writing folder, and I would be embarrassed to attach my name to most of them. Henlein’s fifth rule—keep a story on the market until it has sold—is a tough one for me once I realize a story is not pro quality. (Heinlein can talk big, but he was already an effing genius by the time he coined these rules.) I’ve only been producing publishable work for maybe two years, and many of those stories have either sold or continue to look for homes because they’re just so damn long.

I’m proud to say, as I write this, I’m about 5k from the end of my first novel. I’m really pleased with it, and I can’t wait to dig into revisions and send it out. Writing a novel is weird, because you’re working, but you feel strangely disconnected from everything. I’m looking forward to getting back in “the mix.”

So what is my score? Excuse-free answer: A pitiful 3 or 4, but it’s been much better in the past.

When did you “get serious” about being a writer?

Steve: March 2009. I was working security at a university, and I would spend all night walking around in the dark, through the nursing department’s creepy lab full of blank-eyed dummies or down into the depths of the old mansion that served as the campus library. (The kid version of myself would have had an aneurysm.) I had lots of time to think about my life and the direction it was going. I had been writing since I was a kid, but working as a professional had always felt sort of distant and hypothetical. For the first time, it felt like something I could do, not some future me, but me.

I bought a little $300 netbook and starting writing every chance I got. Six months later, I was accepted into Uncle Orson’s Literary Boot Camp where I got to work closely with one of my heroes, Orson Scott Card. I sat across from the man at dinner. We split a pizza. It was surreal. I think it was John Brown (the author and Codexian) who said that Boot Camp was “a barn burner, a great blaze of insight.” He’s right. There was no turning back after that.

What are your goals with your writing?

Steve: I want to create disposable entertainment with thematic substance. I want to be one of those hard-working, skillful, genre authors who tells great stories and gets paid for it. I want to sell books the old-fashioned way, to a good publisher who will put them in the hands of the most possible readers. I want my books to save people during a long wait at the airport or the bus stop or the doctor’s office. I want people to stay up all night worrying about my characters. I want people to argue about them, geek out about them, enjoy them, and miss them when the book or series is finally over.

Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Steve: I have my goals mapped out for the year, five years, and ten years. My goals will change, of course, but it’s still important to have targets to aim at. I’ll spare you my ten-year, world-domination plans, but here are some of my five-year goals:

1. Sell a novel or series to a major publisher

2. Appear in both Asimov’s and F&SF (as well as other magazines—Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock are bonus points!)

3. Finish at least one novel per year

4. Win a major award (Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, etc.)

5. Establish a strong online “platform” (Still thinking about how to accomplish this one.)

*There are others, but they mostly deal with comics.

These are some pretty lofty goals for a relative newcomer like me, but I’m not in this game to dick around. I’m here to make the most of my time and talent. To do that, you have to aim high and work hard. I’m doing both.

Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

Steve: If I had to settle on the one idea I’m most stoked about right now, it would probably be the book I’m planning to write next, “Early Birds.” It’s a zombie novel about a teenage girl who “wakes up” months after the last humans have succumbed to [whatever I end up calling the damn infection]. She discovers a group of other girls her age who have also recovered from being zombies, and ends up at a school led by the only adult anywhere (as far as they know), a brilliant, dangerous woman with a plan to rebuild the world—but first, they have to find a living male.

It’s a whole thing. School drama, cannibalism, “bunker people,” love, pregnancy, post-apocalyptic politics, violence. It’s going to be effing insane. I can’t wait to start.

What are your hobbies outside writing?

Steve: I’m a geek. I like to read comics and play video games and watch anime and play D&D, although this last almost never happens anymore. If I’m going to work that hard on something, it should be something I can sell. Lately, I’m pretty boring. I watch a documentary every night after the wife and kids are in bed, and oddly I find nonfiction more relaxing that fiction. I listen to NPR in the car instead of music. When did I get so old?

I sing and write songs and play a little guitar. I’m not disciplined at it (probably because my older brother Jay was), but I have a lot of fun. Jay s and I are in a band called “Hills and Downs” [link: http://listn.to/HillsandDowns] with our two younger brothers. My wife is always bugging me to sing, but for some reason, it’s the one thing I’m shy about.

I like to fight. I think it’s a guy-with-lots-of-brothers thing. My college experience was like Jackass with boxing gloves. I have a friend who trained at Throwdown San Diego (alongside guys like Tyson Griffin, Jeremy Stephens, Diego Sanchez, and Brandon Vera); he moved back to town and began training me in Muay Thai kickboxing a couple years ago. I like bad food too much to ever fight professionally, but I love to stand across from a guy who wants to kick my ass and go to town. Best stress reliever ever.

What’s your writing process like?

Steve: I get an idea, put in it a blender with a few others, and look for the story in the tension between the ingredients. Then I list. Lists are my friend. When the lists start to look like outlines, I start writing. If I get stuck, I drive and listen to music. A road trip is as good as a month of indoor brainstorming. I also talk things out with friends. Sometimes they can see what you mean better than you can.

When I write, I try to make every section fun. Every night, I know my wife is at home waiting to read what I wrote, and I never want to hand her something boring. My theory is this: if every damn page is fun to read (and you haven’t neglected the basics), you’ll have something good. With good editing, it might even end up great.

What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

Steve: Any time you decide to do something risky or unusual, the people around you worry. (Thankfully, my wife is not one of these people.) Sometimes they try to fix you. Sometimes that fixing goes beyond a healthy, helpful level and becomes almost discriminatory. I have failed at a lot of things in my life by kidding myself about myself, mostly in an effort to meet expectations. Writers (or the kind of people who become writers) aren’t normal. When they’re trying to do things they weren’t “made for,” they look broken—like a pair of handlebars trying to function as a wheel. You can’t get anywhere like that. Once you figure out, “Hey, I’m not a wheel; I’m a pair of handlebars” things get a lot better.

Shit happens. When in doubt, get stupid. Get single-minded. Get mad, and just write.

Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

Steve: First, be a person. Live. Fight. Fall in love. Make mistakes. There’s no substitute for this.

Second, read. Read fiction. Read nonfiction. Read in your genre and outside it. Read comics. Read scripts. (Hell, watch movies.) Get so familiar with words and stories that your dreams start to make sense.

Third, write. Do it as often as possible, every day if you can. (Five days a week is pretty good.) Make plans for a project, then finish it. Start another one right away. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Fourth, become a student of writing. Read every writing book you can get your hands on. Talk to other writers. Get involved in the writing community. It may be hard to get out in the world and realize you’re not a unique flower, but it will be good for you. Stay humble and teachable. Get excited about learning new things. If you find a gap in your game, plug it with knowledge and practice. You have to do the writing, no one else, so learn all you can.

Finally, never stop.

And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

Steve: My story “She Who Lies in Secret” is slotted as the June 2012 cover story for Red Penny Papers. It’s a story about a college boy who finds a psychic mermaid in the basement of an old mansion. Things go bad in a big way. It’s one of my favorites. Check it out when it goes up. (You should check out Red Penny Papers anyway. They’re cool people doing cool things in a cool way, and I’m convinced they’re not afraid of anything.)

Neo-Pro Interview: Kat Otis

Who are you? What’s your genre/history/etc?

Kat: I’m Kat Otis and my genre is speculative fiction – everything from historical fantasy to urban fantasy, with the occasional bit of science fiction thrown in for good measure.

What’s your Race score? (1 pt for every short story out to market, 3 points for every novel query (1 per novel only), 8 points for every full (once per novel only also) )

Kat: Alas, only 2! I’m currently revising a novel, so I haven’t had as much time to devote to short stories, recently. I expect that number to shoot up again once I’ve started querying and have time to revise a few shorts that are almost-there-but-not-quite.

When did you “get serious” about being a writer?

Kat: I started submitting to Writers of the Future on a semi-regular basis in 2005, but I think I really “got serious” in 2009. That’s when I decided to put my money where my mouth was, so to speak, and attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. In an usual-but-awesome series of events, that’s also where I sold my first story.

What are your goals with your writing?

Kat: Get as many stories as possible out of my head and onto paper. Or e-ink.

I’m one of those people for whom the ideas never stop flowing, and if I don’t write them down then my characters follow me around and whine. There are a lot of those characters who really do deserve a novel of their own (but don’t tell them I admitted it!) so my long-term writing goal is to someday have published a whole bookshelf’s worth of my novels.

Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Kat: I would love to have a novel (or three, hey, a gal can dream) out within the next five years.

Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

Kat: I really want to write an historical fantasy about Juana La Loca. I’ve got most of the plot figured out, I just need to do scads and scads of research on the milieu. Now if only I could figure out how to survive on no sleep….

What are your hobbies outside writing?

Kat: And outside of reading, too, right? 🙂 Singing, hiking, photography, Girl Scouts and whatever else happens to catch my fancy.

What’s your writing process like?

Kat: I’m definitely a “pantster.” My process generally goes along these lines:

1) Something sparks my interest

2) so I jot down a note and generally forget about it

3) except for when I start daydreaming about a character and all the trouble they could get into

4) so I open up a Microsoft Word file and start writing

5) until I get stuck

6) so I wander off and sometimes forget about it

7) but more often I daydream some more and eventually figure out what happens next

8) so I repeat steps 4-7 until I finish

Then, of course, we get to the editing process, in which I analyze the story to discover what I was *really* writing about and just didn’t realize until afterwards.

What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

Kat: Balancing my writing and my day job, both of which draw on the same mental circuits. Though a close runner-up is Shiny New Project Syndrome. 🙂 I cope by making myself to-do lists and schedules, most of which I promptly ignore but at least the process of making them helps me figure out where my current priorities need to be. Also, it’s so much easier to feel like I’m making progress, especially on a big project, if there’s lots of tiny “to-do” steps I can cross off a list.

Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

Kat: Retro-outlining! Because I’m a pantster, I don’t outline before I write, but I do outline after I’ve got my first draft written. I find it extremely helpful to go through the manuscript and find all the key plot developments, character arcs, etc. Once I’ve retrospectively figured out my structure, then I can revise to bring out the strengths in the story.

And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

Kat: I’ve got a story in Sword & Sorceress 26, which is coming out in November. You can see the list of contributors and the cover art at http://www.mzbworks.com/S26.htm

Neo-pro Interview: Lon Prater

interview with Lon — Interview: Lon Prater

Who are you?

Lon: I’m Lon Prater. I retired not long back from the Navy and now hang my hat in Pensacola, Florida.

What’s your genre/history/etc?

Lon: Mostly dark. Horror (Lovecraftian and otherwise), Weird Crime and History. Occasionally science fiction. I suppose the lightest story I tend to write would be classified as a “cautionary tale.” The mood of much of my work falls somewhere between noir and tragedy. Despite this, I am a pretty happy person who finds a lot of joy and laughter in the real world.

What’s your Race score? (1 pt for every short story out to market, 3 points for every novel query (1 per novel only), 8 points for every full (once per novel only also) )

Lon: Thanks for reminding me–not just of the Race scoring system, but that I’m supposed to send my stuff out. As I write this, I’ve just finished my bi-or tri-monthly push to get my stories out there pounding the pavement, looking for work. So my score at the moment is 20. Soon to plummet, no doubt.

And I don’t dare mention what the score was 12 hours ago. Did you know it really is possible to die of shame?

When did you “get serious” about being a writer?

Lon: Heh. Which time? Family members claim I declared my intention to be a writer when I was about 6 years old. I made several flawed attempts between then and 2003, when finally something I threw out into the world landed in the much beloved Borderlands series, volume 5. Not long after, I entered Writers of the Future and ended up a Published Finalist in 2005. Since then, I’ve only gotten serious about being a writer five or six times. Somehow, though, I tend to get more things published when I’m just having fun with being a writer. So it’s all good.

What are your goals with your writing?

Lon: Sometimes, I want to write stories that challenge my abilities and what I think I can do with the form. This would be epistoleries such as “Never the Twain” [Daily Science Fiction”] and weird second person thingies like “You Do Not Know What Slipstream Is” which appeared in the much-missed Lone Star Stories.

Sometimes, I want to write stories that capture some theme or insight that is bugging the crap out of my brain and will continue to do so until I get the darn thing written and out there into the world. Most recently, this would be the experimental novels I indie published this summer: The American in His Season and The Island of Jayne Grind.

And yet other times, I just want to have so much fun writing my stories that strangers who read them send random emails telling me how much they enjoyed them (which sometimes means “how much they were disturbed by them”). I’m thinking here of “This Is My Corporation, Eat” which was published in IGMS at the beginning of this summer, and “Kids Cost More” about a magic-wielding Mafiosi out for revenge.

Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Lon: I plan to still be writing, and trying to get my stories inside the heads of more readers. I’d like to have landed a traditional publishing contract at some point, but that’s only one leg of the tripod. I’ll always adore the risk-taking small press and like to support worthy ventures and bold visions. Self/Indie Publishing is the final leg of the tripod. I’m fairly new to the joys of Kindle, Createspace, etc. but I like to think I’m catching on fast.

I don’t look at the career end as very “career” to be frank. This is something I do because I enjoy it. I like to write stories and create whole worlds in other people’s heads who come back for more. It’s great when I can get a happy meal or a car payment out of it, but I don’t foresee a day when all I do for a living is write. For one thing, where would all the good material come from? The idea of becoming some bestseller who always writes about writers because that’s all I know anymore kind of terrifies me. Good thing most of my writing is so niche-oriented that I hardly have to worry about that nightmare coming to pass, eh?

Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

Lon: I finished my average 60K words early this year (plus a bonus short story!) and have been focusing on converting some older published work to ebook, revising a few originals for the same end, and–more to your question–plotting a fun and somewhat spicy arc for a series character that I want to begin writing before the year is out.

Till now, I’ve never felt like I wanted to work in series fiction. But I’ve always found ways to push my own limits, and with this character and idea, I think I have enough traction to make a go of it.

If I was to get a chance to write in other people’s worlds, I think I’d get a kick out of writing a Calvin & Hobbes novel. Yes, I know this one will never, ever happen for anybody, but that just makes me want to do it even more.

What are your hobbies outside writing?

Lon: I am a devoted Texas Hold’em nut, but I really like playing card and board games of all descriptions. We have been playing a lot of a Canasta style game called “Hand and Foot” lately. When the winds are good I tend to take my stunt kites out to the beach and tear holes in the sky with them.

What’s your writing process like?

Lon: It’s changed a lot over time. At first, the trend was toward writing gradually longer stories as my “writing muscles” developed. In time, I discovered my natural novel length is at the 50K end of the spectrum. (I’ve never done NaNoWriMo, though. The timing and pace stinks for how I usually work.)

Then I began to really understand story structure, and it colored my process quite a bit. For a long time I thought in terms of four act structure, and found that I tended to work very similarly to the first few steps of Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Theory. I still use a model much like that when plotting a story (or editing one.) But now there’s the new wrinkle, adapted from Dan Wells’ 7 Point Structure, of considering the changes in status from beginning to middle to end.

I’m always looking for new craftsmanship ideas to try on, creatively. Some I use for one story, some I keep for years until I outgrow them.

What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

Lon: I think it’s probably been distraction and guilt.

It’s easy for me to get distracted by the shiny stuff on my laptop screen and make no progress even when I am dedicating time for nothing but forward progress on a project. The best workaround on this for me has been the Alphasmart Neo. All you can do with it is write. I’ve put over 700 pages on mine so far, and I’m still on the first set of betteries. Only downfall, IMHO, is that it is just smidge too simplified of a word processor. I’d kill for the ability to do italics and underlines when composing on the Neo.

Regarding guilt, there’s two parts. First, I’d go read writers blogs about the daily progress meter and how “writers write” and if you aren’t writing every day, you must not be a writer. That kind of thing used to get me really down. Because I don’t write every day. I do keep track of my writing, with a simple date, # pages in Standard Manuscript Format. This helps. I write somewhere north of 60K a year, usually over about 30 well-scattered calendar days. And I submit the stuff I write to editors who actually pay me for the right to publish it! Realizing that I must be a writer even though I don’t apply butt to writing chair every day was a huge relief.

The other part of the guilt is that when I am focused on writing I feel guilty about all the things I am not doing with or for my family. I am grateful to have their support, but there’s an uneasy, whispering voice that’s always there, telling me if I really cared about my wife or my kids, I’d stop writing right this instant and go spend time with them. Finding a balance and feeling like it’s okay to do this writing thing for is a tricky hill to climb, and one I always feel like I’m falling down the wrong side of.

Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

Lon: The best piece of advice I can offer anyone–and this is what I feel has done to most to improve my stories and craft–is to aim for some new goal with every story you write, and to keep that goal in mind every time you sit down to write. Also, pick some particular aspect of your technique that you are going to be mindful of with every session–whether writing or revising.

I never thought I’d write a time travel story, until I challenged myself to figure out what a Lon Prater time travel story would look like. Beyond Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, I’ve never had much use for writing in the second person, but I’m still proud of accomplishing what I set out to in “You Do Not Know What Slipstream Is”. When I edited one story in particular, I gave myself the goal of paying extra attention to sensory elements beyond sight and sound. Another time, I focused on bringing out the theme and mood by finding better verbs all the way through.

The key is: Consciously challenge yourself in some deliberate way, every time you write or revise what you have written. And after, make sure you know what you learned from the process.

And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

Lon: There are free previews available for my two indie pubbed novels, The American In His Season and The Island of Jayne Grind at my site. I’d be delighted if readers of your blog were interested enough to go there and take a look.

Neo-pro Interview: Nathaniel Lee

Who are you? What’s your genre/history/etc?

Nathan: I’m Nathan, or Nathaniel Lee for my Srs Writer Name. I write oddball stuff that probably would get stuck in “magical realism” or “slipstream” or whatever the term du jour is. My standard approach is a basic modern-day setting with Something Different About It, and a dearth of explanation as to how or why, for example, words now cause physical damage to match their emotional damage or a hole in the ground is swallowing all the water in the world. I think of myself as mostly a fantasy author, if that helps, treading on the borderlands of horror every now and then and rarely dipping into SF.

What’s your Race score?

Nathan: I’ve got 21 stories out right now because that’s all the stories I have in a finished state. I’m a little behind with my polishing; I’ve got three or four stories waiting for revisions/edits, whereas normally I keep that down to two or fewer. Duotrope says I’ve submitted somewhere around 140 stories in the past twelve months. My policy is to juggle them right back out as soon as they hit my inbox with the rejection note. I’ve got a “Writing” label in Gmail that is a deep purple, so when I look at my e-mail and it starts looking like a bruise, then that’s my To-Do List for the weekend. Once they’re sent back out, I can archive the rejection letters and move on with my life.

When did you “get serious” about being a writer?

Nathan: Around about 2008. I am not making tons of progress, but on the other hand, I was fairly desultory about it for the first year or so, writing only a half-dozen stories or so. I’ve written 20 stories so far in 2011, which has been much more satisfying. I joined a support group of sorts where the ostensible goal was to produce 25 stories for the year, or one story approximately every two weeks. I think I’m the only person left actually trying to achieve that, but it really helped for the early bits. I cannot emphasize enough how much even the tiniest bit of outside accountability helps boost one’s productivity. The effect is astonishing, even on someone as lazy as I am.

What are your goals with your writing?

Nathan: Well, it would be nice to be able to support myself with it, but I am fully aware that is a pipe dream. I would be content as a D-grade celebrity, able to go to tiny local conventions and attend events as a Serious Writer or have the occasional successful signing at a local bookstore. Be one of the names that gets scooped out of slush at a few decent magazines rather than languishing with the hoi polloi. Even just having a book published that I can go to a bookstore and see on the shelves. I do not want fame and fortune; very mild success will suffice for me.

I’m frankly skeptical I’ll ever achieve that, mind you, but I’ll keep plugging away. Next year is Novel Writing Year, where I will force myself to finish at least one Damned Book. (I have three or four 50K+ half-finished manuscripts lying around. My ADD and general pessimism keep sapping my will to continue on such long projects.)

Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Nathan: Well, barring some kind of unexpected surge, I might have a book and maybe an agent to go with it by then. Judging by my progress to date, there will be an awful lot of running without much forward motion on the old treadmill. I think this video pretty much sums up how I picture my writing career: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMO8Pyi3UpY

Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

Nathan: Usually if I want to write something, I just do it. I have a list of story seeds right on my desktop, and I open it up whenever I finish a story to pick the theme for the next one.
I’m not hugely into fanfiction – due to Sturgeon’s Law, mostly – but if I had the chance to work on, say, a novelization of an Avatar: The Last Airbender story/sequel/standalone, that would be a ton of fun.

What are your hobbies outside writing?

Nathan: I am a gigantic nerd. Like, massive. I read a lot of spec-fic, naturally, and I also enjoy neuroscience and psychology books or interesting science books in general. I love roleplaying games – much of my writing skills were honed playing forum-based Vampire and D&D and so on, actually – and I am deeply into board games. We have an entire walk-in closet that is pretty much full of board games. I favor abstract strategy games, but I also like word games, war games, and your basic Euro-game with little wooden cubes and no way to burn down your enemy’s huts, alas.

I’m also a total hipster/snob about this stuff. I’m really insufferable. Like, I don’t play just D&D or GURPS; that’s so *pedestrian*. No, the games I really like are weird offbeat indie games, like Don’t Rest Your Head and Nobilis and Mouse Guard. I’m the guy who will cheerfully sit and chat in-character for hours but gets antsy after twenty minutes of combat.

What’s your writing process like?

Nathan: I call it “gumbo.” I get an idea, and I jot it down. Then it goes into the Pot of the Subconscious and simmers with all the other stuff down there. Periodically, I pull something out and look at it more closely, see if I can see characters, a plot, etc., to go with the original striking image or phrase or thematic idea. Often, I toss it back in the pot to keep cooking, but sometimes I can tell an idea is “done” and ready to go, at which point I dish it up, add spices, and serve.

To drop the metaphor, I am primarily a “pantser,” but not a pure one. I rarely just start writing without any forethought whatsoever. I just don’t write any outlines or character sketches in advance; it all builds up in my head, organically, and I leave the details vague. As I write, I find the specific notes I want to hit flow very smoothly out so long as the basic idea has “simmered” for long enough. If I find myself hesitating a lot or dithering over whether, say, the protagonist has a beloved father or a lost spouse, I know the idea wasn’t cooked all the way through when I pulled it out. I usually complete a story in one or two marathon sessions of two to six thousand words. More rarely, I will work on a story slowly over a week or two, but I find those stories tend to need a lot more editing and refining afterward.

What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer?

Nathan: The resounding “meh” with which I have largely been met. Hatred is fine; apathy is hard to swallow. Given that I tend to love stories that everyone else also says “Meh” to and to dislike stories that receive widespread acclaim, I have attempted to resign myself to being a niche taste with a relatively limited audience. Which I’m fine with; I just would like to find my audience already.

How do you keep yourself going?

Nathan: Well, I’m going to be making up stories no matter what; if I weren’t writing for publication, I’d be putting excessive amounts of time into some forum roleplaying game or something. I figure, I might as well send the stories out and see if I can sell ’em, y’know? It costs nothing, or almost nothing. I keep a pessimistic outlook and assume failure is a given; that way, when I get rejection notes, I get the grim satisfaction of being proven right about how crappy my writing is, and when I manage to score a sale, it’s pure frosting.

Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

Nathan: Nope. There’s only one way to expertise, and that’s practice. Read a lot and write a lot. That’s all you can do.

And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

Nathan: I maintain a daily writing blog of 100-word stories at www.mirrorshards.org. It is called Mirrorshards, creatively enough, and it is the closest thing to an Author’s Website I have. (There’s a link to my bibliography on it and everything.) I’ve been writing a story a day since November 2008, though last year I dropped it to six days a week. I do not update regularly enough, but I try to catch up whenever I miss a day or two. I flatter myself that I have developed a decent level of talent at microfiction at this point.

All the stories there are under a CC license that explicitly allows derivative works so long as the original is credited, so anyone who wants to steal my ideas and write a “real” story with them can freely do so. Not that anyone but me thinks they are interesting ideas, but still.

Neo-pro Interview: Rick Novy

It’s Thursday, so here’s an interview!

Who are you? What’s your genre/history/etc?

Rick: Rick Novy, I write mostly science fiction but stray into other spec fic areas from time to time. I have something like 40 short stories published, but I’m still missing that third SFWA-eligible sale, though I do have a third pro sale to a non-eligible market. I also occasionally write non-fiction, usually science or technology aimed at the non-scientist.

I have also edited two anthologies, Ergosphere and 2020 Visions,both from M-Brane Press.

What’s your Race score?

Rick: Very low at the moment, though my high-watermark is around 55. I had an extremely difficult life situation for about 3 years that sharply curtailed my productivity, and it took about an additional 2 years to recover from it. I have been coasting on all those stories for half a decade without refilling the tank. While I have a few new short stories in circulation right now, most of my recent efforts have been long fiction. I made the decision to become an indie author, so in many ways the Race is no longer a relevant benchmark for me.

When did you “get serious” about being a writer?
Rick: The day I decided I would finish my novel no matter what. that would be around October 2004.

What are your goals with your writing?

Rick: Foremost, I want to entertain. I’d also like to make a living at it, and assuming the indie model I have in mind holds true, I think that is a real possibility.

Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Rick: My goal at the moment is focused on long fiction, and I believe I can produce 3 to 4 novels per year. That included all the publishing aspects also. If I can sustain that pace, I would have 23 novels out (including the three I am trying to finish this year and starting the clock on Jan 1)

Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

Rick: Two very different questions. I have a lot of ideas that are in the queue for novels. I have a list taped to my computer desk that is 7 novels deep. I have another list that 8 deep set in the same universe, most of which does not overlap the first list. I have lots of ideas for long fiction.

I would someday love to write a Doctor Who novel, a Star Trek (TOS) novel, and a Star Wars novel. The first two I could handle, but I suspect there is so much non-cannon material for Star Wars that I would never be able to be consistent in that universe.

What are your hobbies outside writing?

Rick: More than I have time for. Probably the most visible is that I am a fishkeeper. Today I have 11 fish tanks set up for various species. Some for breeding, some just to have that fish around. It can be a lot of work if you don’t keep up with the water changes, but if you stay on it, it’s not bad. Benefit of so many tanks is if I have a health problem in one tank, I still have a bunch of healthy tanks so I don’t get as upset about it.

What’s your writing process like?

Rick: Fits and starts. I don’t outline on paper–much of that happens in my head. I pick benchmarks in the story and I let the characters get to them however they get there. I like to write regularly but as long as I am being productive on some aspect of the business I’m satisfied.

For novels, I use a spreadsheet I got from David Gerrold to track my progress. I find it helps to pull me through my word count for the day. I enter my word count and time writing into the sheet at regular intervals. Watching the daily tally add up (and how quickly it can add up) encourages me to add more. It’s basically tricking myself into being productive,but it works for me.

What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

Rick: Distractions. I have a lot of them and it’s usually the writing time that is sacrificed to do other things–other people’s demands on my time. Motivation has never really been much of a problem for me. I’m self-motivated and I believe in my work. One of the benefits of making the decision to become an indie author is that I have no roadblocks to publication other than my own. That has been a serious motivator to be productive because I control a lot more of the business. I have become the one who puts up the most roadblocks because when I’m productive, I grow a body of work.

Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

Rick: Read and write, and do both a lot. Submit, submit, submit. Subscribe to Heinlein’s rules. don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it.

And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

Rick: Neanderthal Swan Song is my first novel. It’s available all over. My website www.ricknovy.com, Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & noble, CreateSpace.

Thanks to Rick for participating!

Neo-Pro Interview: Melissa Mead

Yes, that is right. The interviews are back. I’ll be posting them every Thursday until I run out of ~~victims~~ entries.

Enjoy!

Who are you? What’s your genre/history/etc?

Melissa: Hi! I’m Melissa Mead, writer of mostly fantasy, occasional SF, and even more occasional horror (usually on a dare.)

What’s your Race score?

Melissa: Aw, you caught me near the end of the month! I generally sub a batch of stories in the first week of a month. Right now, I’d say 12 “serious” points. (There are also some novel queries to agents who I’m assuming aren’t interested at this point.)

When did you “get serious” about being a writer?

Melissa: My seriousness has increased in waves. First, in 1997, I got serious enough to submit for publication. (Which happened in 1999) In 2002, I went to my first con, met Real Writers, and started sending to more than one or two places, and tracking my subs. In 2007, I started querying agents. I have a feeling that it’s about time to decide whether to catch the next wave or not.

What are your goals with your writing?

Melissa: Right now, I’d love to 1. Qualify for active SFWA membership. (This could happen soon!) 2. Sell a story to Realms of Fantasy, and 3. Sell a print novel to a major publisher.

Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Melissa: Depends if I catch that next wave of commitment or not. If I dare, maybe you’ll see that novel in a bookstore somewhere.

Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

Melissa: I have a novel that’s been lurking in my brain for a few years. I’m not dying to write it just yet, but it hasn’t gone away, either. It starts with Snow White, and gets odd from there. As far as tie-ins go, I don’t play well in other people’s yards. Although my husband and I once did come up with a Star Trek story involving Voyager, the doctor’s mobile emitter, and STTNG’s Moriarty that I would’ve loved to watch.

What are your hobbies outside writing?

Melissa: There are hobbies outside of writing? Oh, reading, of course. Going on picnics with my husband. Turning my not-very-impressive photographs into artwork.

What’s your writing process like?

Melissa: Get idea. Write like crazy. Realize I don’t know where it’s going. Stare at screen. Surf the Net. Get another idea. Write like crazy. Get stuck. Eventually, browse among the various stuck beginnings, realize where one is going, and FINISH something: hooray, at last, ‘bout darn time. Repeat.

What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

Melissa: Lack of self confidence. And sometimes I don’t. (See the last question.) But there are always more ideas. If I don’t let them out, who will?

Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

Melissa: Write flash. Drabbles, even. Write stories of 1,500-2,000 words, and distil them to under 1,000. It’s great practice for packing the most story into the least space.

And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

Melissa: May I pimp my writers group? We’re here: http://carpelibris.wordpress.com/

Thanks for letting me do this!

Neo-Pro Interview #5

Time for another neo-pro interview, this time with Patty Jansen.

Q: Who are you? What’s your genre/history/etc?

Patty: I’m Australian (please allow for funny spelling), and I have at various times in the past been an agricultural scientist, librarian, non-fiction author, non-fiction bookseller and I’m also a mother of three teenagers. I write a lot of different subgenres within speculative fiction and have been known to write some mainstream fiction. Every time I think I’m completely swaying to one subgenre, I get the itch to write something totally different. That said, I am now no longer too shy to admit that my first love is realistic space-based hard SF and that I am a great fan of space opera, especially the type that considers sociological and economic aspects and the tensions they create on people in a strange environment. In fantasy, I enjoy anything that uses fresh and believable settings and concepts.

Q: What’s your Race score?

Patty: Funnily enough, I’ve stopped obsessing over how many submissions I have out. There are a number of venues where I don’t submit as frequently anymore, because I have other venues to send my stories, and those venues are hanging onto my work much longer than before. I tend to plan the submission path of each story much better, and don’t have so many stories out anymore.

Q: When did you “get serious” about being a writer?

Patty: I started writing seriously in 2004, after my father died of cancer, while there were still so many things in life he wanted to do. I had done some writing in high school and the first years at university, but then a relationship, work and kids played havoc with my time. I started writing again for myself in 2003, and met a friend through another interest who also wrote fiction. She was the first person to make me aware of the existence of critique groups. I joined SF-OWW in December 2004, the date I take as the start of my serious writing efforts. I was there for four years. SF-OWW is wonderful. It is the first place I’d advise a new writer of SF/F to go.

Q: What are your goals with your writing?

Patty: My goals? *Laughs* To have stories accepted in all the major magazines I enjoy reading. On top of that, to publish some novels. Will that happen? I think it the first probably looks increasingly likely. I’ve cracked Redstone SF, as they will be publishing ‘Party, with Echoes’ in May. The second aim… I don’t know, that is if you consider traditional publishing. I think the market is very much in a state of flux, and I have arrived at the wrong time, and am preparing to take my novels to Smashwords and Amazon, where I already have some works up. Times have changed, and while big publishers are hanging on by their fingernails and not investing much in new writers, if at all, small publishers are going broke, leaving writers in all sorts of contractual mess. I have been offered my share of poor contracts by small presses, and I think I can do better myself. Will I ever bother going back to trying to get an agent? Maybe if I hit the big-time. For now, I don’t care much. I’m selling my own stories, and employing my own designers and proofreaders. I quite like it like that. I was able to join SFWA on the back of my short fiction sales. I feel I don’t need the validation of an agent. I want to try doing my own thing. I’ve done it before, in non-fiction.

Q: Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Patty: I really don’t want to make predictions. I write because I enjoy it, and I take my writing where I can sell it. I’d like to have some income from writing that justifies me continuing with it, and that pays for the occasional con attendance, but beyond that, we’ll see.

Q: Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

Patty: I’ve done quite well with my hard SF stories, but would dearly like to write a cracking good hard SF novel that sets space travel and colonisation in a modern light where the reader feels it could actually happen (in other words, with minimal ‘magic’ technology). Of course such a setting needs a story, and I have a cracking good story, but in the process of research (it involves interstellar travel), my desk has become buried in astronomy books. It’s all mightily interesting but sadly very distracting. Although the work has left me with some really good short stories. One day I will get my mind around writing that novel. It will be my aim to write hard SF with involved characters who have personalities and quirks and hates and real love lives. I want to write a book that not just hard SF buffs enjoy. I think that if His Name In Lights is anything to go by, I’ll be able to do that.

Q: What are your hobbies outside writing?

Patty: Besides astronomy, and orchids, I play the flute. Like so many kids at school, I played the recorder. Unlike many kids at school, I kept doggedly going with it, until I had a collection of nice wooden concert recorders and had been playing for ten years. Then I gave it up halfway through university. Two years ago, I heard of a local music group starting a new concert band for lapsed musicians. It’s great fun. The story of my musical life is very similar to what’s happened to my writing. There was neither the time nor the mental headspace for music or writing when I had a full-time job and three children under five. This is the reality I see a lot of writers box up against. They have a baby, or two. They try to keep going, but after a year or two, they are exhausted and have to give up. To these people, I’d want to say: it’s OK, it will come back.

Q: What’s your writing process like?

Patty: One word: chaotic. One of the things I have found about the writing process is that there is no such thing as a writing process. Sometimes the setting comes to you long before the story, sometimes you have the characters sorted out, but the setting needs TLC, and sometimes you have a good story, but the characters don’t yet click. Each of these eventualities needs a different approach. I’d describe myself as a pantser, but there have been occasions where I knew everything that would need to happen in the story, in which case I had an outline and was happy to follow it. But I’m equally happy to start a novel with a rough idea of how it should start and another rough idea of where the characters will be at the end, and just write random scenes and thoughts into a file. After I’ve done a number such disjointed drafts, I usually form an outline by performing a cut-and-paste and write the final rough draft. That’s usually draft 5. When that is completed, there’s only polishing to be done.

Q: What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

Patty: I don’t think I’ve had it very tough, and to be honest, no one else here does. Writing is something we want to do, and if we want to do it, we have to set aside the time for it. If we don’t want to do that, we should quit whining and take up lawnbowls or croquet. Rejections are tough but you get used to them. And I honestly don’t feel I have the right to talk about tough when so many people out there don’t have a choice about doing mindless jobs, or even have no jobs at all. Doing what you enjoy doing can’t possibly be tough.

Q: Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

Patty: Don’t get hung up about other people’s ‘don’t’ rules. Well, according to this advice, you can go ahead and break this one now. I think at some stage developing writers live under the illusion that there is some magic pill and that if only the writers took it, success would be guaranteed. According to whom you speak, that magic pill may contain a total absence of the word ‘that’, or ‘was’, or getting rid of passive language, or some or other writing rule that can be followed off a cliff. I would say: relax. Those rules are written by writing teachers trying to define what constitutes a confident, authoritative voice. And that’s impossible to define, except to say ‘I’ll know it when I see it.’ My advice is therefore to read a lot of those books and stories by recently-published award-winning authors. My advice would be to volunteer as slush reader. And join some form of writers group that involves other people commenting on your work, and vice versa.

Q: And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

Patty: I have some fiction up on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/pattyjansen
I’ve recently added something I believe to be rare in fiction: a space-based SF book for younger readers. It’s not just a kids story. ‘The Far Horizon’ was written with adults in mind. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent reading books aloud to my kids. I loved those books that had a hidden, higher level that engaged adults. Think movies like my favourite ‘The Incredibles’, which can be enjoyed on a pure action-based level by the kids, and on that plus a higher level by their parents. The Far Horizon is about a boy discovering a terrorist plot, but on a higher level it’s about discrimination. I truly love that story.
The same works are also on Amazon, but keep in mind that Smashwords is much more friendly to the non-US writer.
Besides this, I always like to pimp my blog where I talk about writing and science.

Neo-Pro Interview #4

Here’s the fourth in my neo-pro interview series, as promised.

Today, please welcome David Steffen.

Q: Who are you? What’s your genre/history/etc?

David: I’m David Steffen, and I’m a writer. (Hello, David)

I’ve pretty much always known that I wanted to create, but the medium
has changed as I’ve grown older. When I was a kid I wanted to be a
cartoonist, and I still like to doodle cartoon animals in my spare
time, but I never really stuck with it long enough to get really
proficient. Around junior high I decided I wanted to make video
games, and that stuck with me for quite some time, and I chose to
pursue a bachelor’s degree of computer science toward that end. Then
I met some people who worked in the gaming industry and found out that
they worked 70-80 hours a week during a normal week, and I decided
that maybe that wasn’t right for me. I like to be able to leave work
at some point. But I kept on with the computer science degree and now
I write computer vision programs for traffic control
applications–automatically detecting vehicles in the turn lane to
activate the green arrow, for instance.

I’ve always liked to read, and my favorite genre has always been
science fiction and fantasy, simply because there the stories need not
be limited by little things like the laws of nature or the framework
of human history. But until 2006 I never really considered that I
could be someone who wrote those stories. Somehow, those writers had
always seemed like post-human entities who had always been famous. I
mean, I knew that wasn’t the case, but despite the rational truth
that’s sort of the feeling I had about writers. Then in 2006, I
talked to my buddy Travis, who told me that he was writing a fantasy
novel. I mulled over this for a while and in 2007 I decided I ought
to give it a try.

So I started writing, first on a novel. I finished it in June 2008
and sent it off to Tor. Their website suggest 4-6 months turnaround
so I started work on the next novel. 12 days later, I got the Tor
rejection and decided that if markets would respond so quickly I would
need to try short stories that I could write more quickly. I sent the
novel off to Elder Signs Press, who I never did hear a response from.
From there I visited writing forums and met the friends that I met.
More than anything else, Baen’s Bar critique forum was the greatest
step in my learning, as I posted and critiqued short stories and grew
in skill in leaps and bounds. My story would be very different today
if I’d sent that first manuscript to ESP first instead of Tor.

Regarding genre, I write whatever moves me on that given day. I
occasionally write mainstream, but I regularly write SF, fantasy,
horror, just whatever pops into my head at the time.

Q: What’s your Race score?

David: My race score is 34 at the moment, 31 short stories and one partial
novel manuscript.

Q: When did you “get serious” about being a writer?

David: Serious? I can’t afford to get too serious about it, or I won’t enjoy
it anymore, and then I may as well just quit. I write what I like and
I I try to make each story my best story yet. Like I said I started
in 2007 and I’ve been going ever since. I made my first sale to
Pseudopod in 2009 (“The Disconnected”), which was a huge boost in
confidence, and my first story hit the masses with “The Utility of
Love” in Northern Frights Publishing’s Shadows of the Emerald City
anthology. It seems like I’ve gotten a lot of “almost, but no” type
rejections lately so I am hoping that that is a good sign of my
chances in the near future.

Q: What are your goals with your writing?

David: Oh, I have lots of goals at varying levels of difficulty. Here’s a few:
–Make a SFWA qualifying sale. (Bull Spec may be qualified soon in
which case I have a story that would be grandfathered in).
–Submit to Writers of the Future every quarter until I win or until I
disqualify myself with pro sales.
–Make a profit. I keep a tally of all my writing expenses (postage,
instructional books, etc) and all of my writing income. If I were
paid for a couple pending sales today, I would come within a few
dollars of paying for my expenses. This is very exciting!
–Qualify for SFWA
–Break into certain of my favorite markets (F&SF, Fantasy, ASIM,
Necrotic Tissue, Drabblecast, etc…)

Q: Where do you see your career in 5 years?

David: There you go using “serious” words again. 🙂 I am no good at
predictions, and even less so in writing because so much of it depends
on random chance and on the whims of individuals’ taste in fiction.
All I can control is what I write, and I intend to keep at it. So, in
five years I intend to still be writing and I intend to be writing
better than I ever have before. It would be nice to have finished
another novel or two, but so far my Muse seems to prefer short stories
so we’ll see what happens.

Q: Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

David: I’ve got a few that I’d like to write that I haven’t seemed to
actually wrap a story around. In particular, I keep coming back to a
Pinocchio retelling novel but so far I haven’t pulled it off yet.

As far as established universes, there are no current ones that I’d
like to get into. My first published story, “The Utility of Love”, is
a horror retelling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Oz has always been
one of my favorite worlds and I was very excited to take it and focus
on the parts of the original story that really bothered me. I’d love
to do a Wonderland retelling too, but the original is so meandering
it’s hard to do a coherent retelling. And I’m not good enough at
nonsense to do Lewis Carroll’s story credit.

Q: What are your hobbies outside writing?

David: Oh, all things media, mostly. I love to watch movies, read
books/magazines, play video games. I’m trying a bit of sketching on
the side. Going hiking with or without the dogs is always fun.
Watching hockey.

Q: What’s your writing process like?

David: A lot of things vary about my writing process, but I try to keep at
least some constants. On work days I can get ready for work in about
30 minutes, usually. But I make a habit of getting up an hour earlier
than that and I sit at my desk for most of my time and write whatever
I can. That’s the time of day when my brain is the sharpest, and when
my wife and dogs are zonked out sleeping, so I can usually get a chunk
of writing time in there. I might get a bit more in at lunch on some
days, but that’s no guarantee. And then I do what I can.

Generally I only work on one project at a time because if I switch
projects in the middle I tend not to return to them. And I’ve learned
that on the first draft I’ve just gotta write it as fast as I can or I
will lose momentum. Plot holes, bad wording, that can all be fixed
later and once I type THE END on a rough draft I have never neglected
to go back and polish it, but if I agonize over every word choice as I
go I lose momentum and then I get frustrated and sidetracked.

Q: What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

David: For me I think the toughest thing is just trying to go with the flow.
So much of writing “success” is just plain out of my control and when
I stress out about it I gain nothing but ulcers. Everything hinges on
editorial choices. No matter how good you are, there will be editors
who just don’t dig your style. When you’re a relative unknown you
don’t have Name Fame working in your favor and you’ve just gotta live
with the fact that if you submit a story of equal quality to a Big
Name writer, your story will not be accepted. And probably won’t be
accepted even if your story is better (for some definition of better).
It sucks, but it’s true.

I also have learned that my “ideal writing conditions” seem to flux
every few months. Right now I am writing slow but steady, other times
in a frenzy, other times I may go a month without working much on
anything. My Muse is fickle and likes to change her pattern. If I
get worked up about it, I get nothing but worry. All I can do is make
sure that I sit in my writing desk every day and do what I can.

Q: Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

David: I have very strong feelings about point of view and how it is best
used in a story. Many of these feelings are outlined in this article.
The base of the ideas I got from the amazing book “Self-Editing for
Fiction Writers” by Browne and King, the only instructional book I
recommend. It’s not geared specifically toward speculative fiction
but is an amazing tool for learning some aspects of writing, with
concrete examples, excerpts from real books of good uses and bad uses.
I added some of my own stuff and my own examples but I recommend that
book for anyone who wants to write fiction.

Q: And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

David: I co-edit a nonfiction zine focused on everything related to
speculative fiction: http://www.diabolicalplots.com . I post
interviews of writers and editors, reviews, “best of” lists, website
recommendations and so on.

I have my second Pseudopod story coming up, a reprint of my most
well-received story “What Makes You Tick.” Watch for it some time
soonish.

If you want a full bibliography of my published work (4 short stories
in various formats plus some nonfiction articles), check out my biblio
page .

Quickie Update Again

Hey, I’m in the middle of finishing up my Writers of the Future Q2 story and putting the last couple of chapters of the first Pyrrh novel together. So that’s why it has been quiet around here.

There will be more Clarion news soon, I’m working on a couple projects that I’ll be offering up to help fund my crazy workshop adventures. Until then, I leave you with an interview about my fantasy novel A Heart in Sun and Shadow by the awesome David Wiseheart and his Kindle Authors blog: Find the interview here.

So…more later this week. Meanwhile, back to work!

Neo-Pro Interview #2

And we’re back! I’ve been letting blogging slide in the interests of finishing a novel (I’m about to mail query packages and would hate to get a full request and have to scramble, so getting this novel done is first priority). But now I have another neo-pro interview for you. Enjoy!

Who are you? What’s your genre/history/etc?

Brad: Brad R. Torgersen, full-time nerd, part-time soldier, and night-time writer. I came into science fiction and fantasy through the usual routes: Star Wars and Star Trek, both on the screen and in novelizations. In my early teens I got into techno-thrillers, but eventually drifted over to original fantasy in the form of David Eddings and Stephen R. Donaldson, as well as original science fiction like the “Sten” books from Allan Cole and Chris Bunch. Ultimately, I read Larry Niven’s two omnibus volumes, “N-Space” and, “Playgrounds of the Mind,” at which point my whole fan paradigm got rickrolled. I came up for air and said, “I want to be like Larry Niven!!” That was in 1992.

What’s your Race score?

Brad: My Race score tends to hover in the teens, with occasional spikes into the 20s. My goal is to try and drive it up into the “pro-zone” that Dean Wesley Smith talks about: 80 points or higher, but it’s possible I may sell too often to get it that high or keep it there. Especially in the new universe of electronic self-publishing. I liked your article you did on that with Amanda McCarter by the way.

When did you “get serious” about being a writer?

Brad: I got “serious” in 1992… the first time. I’ve gotten “serious” several times since. The best and most recent period of “serious” began in 2007 when I went back to work on my short fiction and begin to deliberately attempt winning Writers of the Future. There were many stops and starts between 1992 and 2007, and if I had to advise anyone, I’d advise them to not be so herky-jerky about their effort, the way I was.

What are your goals with your writing?

Brad: To pay off my house, put at least $500,000 in the bank, and quit my day job. In that order. That might sound rather mercenary, but the truth is, part of what made me get “serious” in 1992 was that I realized Niven was getting paid to do what I’d been doing for free on the dial-up bulletin boards for a couple of years already: write science fiction (and occasionally fantasy) stories and books. Once I decided that merely writing for fun was not enough, I switched over to looking at it like a business prospect. Now that I am selling, the business aspect is very front-and-center for me, beyond simply finishing books or stories.

Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Brad: It’s tough to say because there is no single road to anywhere in this racket. Just because I’d like a thing to be true by 2016 doesn’t mean it will be. However, if past paths of Writers of the Future winners are any indicator, if I bust my tail and get numerous manuscripts written, in five years I should probably have some novels sold and/or published, additional short fiction sold and published, and be generally working as a new “mid-list” man in the genre. Not a bad place to be. Going beyond mid-list is almost entirely up to the market and audience taste. No way for me to guess how that may shake out. I could crash and burn, or wind up on the New York Times list. Or maybe be an e-publishing breakout success? It would be nice, but I can’t count any of those chickens yet. I don’t even have the eggs!

Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

Brad: Back in 1992 I daydreamed of writing a 5-book supernovel series in the Star Trek universe, detailing the exploits of Captain Sulu and Captain Chekov. I’d written numerous chapters on a fanfiction along these lines. Now? Now, I’d love to dabble in Larry Niven’s universe via the Man-Kzin Wars, with Baen. And I am currently collaborating with award-winner Mike Resnick, which is a whole unexpected but very welcome bit of fun. As for original projects, I would very much like to write an original science fiction series with the audience penetration of “Ender’s Game” and those books, or perhaps a rigorous military fantasy series. My imagination goes all over the place and I know I can’t write it all. I just have to hope one of these projects, somewhere, connects with enough people to earn me a following and (hopefully) a decent amount of money.

What are your hobbies outside writing?

Brad: Hobbies? I have given up many of them over the years, to be a Dad and to get “serious” about writing. Now and then I find a video game I like, though I haven’t played anything more modern than the TRON 2.0 game (from 2004) or the MECHWARRIOR game from before that. Once upon a time I used to scratchbuild starship models from paper, glue and cardboard. That was a lot of fun. Again, just can’t seem to find the time for it these days. Maybe when I am a big famous published author guy? But then, Kevin J. Anderson doesn’t seem to have time for hobbies either. He he he.

*(Nobu sez: squee moment… Mechwarrior 4 is one of my all-time favorite games!)

What’s your writing process like?

Brad: I am still trying to form a process, actually. Left to my own devices I am a “burst” person, with periods of intense writing and then long troughs with little or no writing. This is my “hobbyist” writing habit on full display. Currently I am trying to teach myself to put down words every single day, whether I want to or not. I’ve arranged my schedule so that every night come hell or high water, I am doing one hour before bed. Whatever words I can cram onto the page. It’s not the most inspired way to go about it, but in truth, the stuff I write when not inspired and the stuff I write when totally inspired winds up reading more or less the same. Hat tip to Dean Smith on that truth, as you well know.

What’s been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

Brad: The toughest part has been ignoring the odds and the self-doubt. The odds are terrible. Just awful. Anyone coming into commercial fiction because they think the odds are good is fooling themselves. The odds are putrid. Which is a big reason it’s always tough for me to keep my wordcount and morale up, even after breaking in. Having climbed one “mountain” there is a whole Himalayan range ahead of me. Do I really want to keep doing this?? Surely there are better and/or less crazy ways to make good money and have fun. But I long ago consigned myself to this goal: of becoming a successful, well-paid science fiction and fantasy writer. It’s been my deepest, most sought-after dream for almost 20 years. Turning away or giving up is simply not an option for me. So I slog on. Not because I am especially inspired, but because I feel like if I quit now, I will be failing myself and my family, and I simply can’t do that.

Any tips or tricks you’ve figured out for improving your writing?

Brad: Best “trick” I can offer anyone is to just read frequently, and perk up when you see something you like. Doesn’t matter if you think it’s what will sell. Ignore that impulse. When you read a story or a book, and you say to yourself, wow, I really, really liked that, PAY ATTENTION! Try to figure out what it was in the story or book that hit your “cookies” and made you like it. Examine these things and try to figure out how to apply them to your own stories. My novelette “Outbound” in the November 2010 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact was like that. I’d read a wonderful novelette called, “Arkfall” by Carolyn Ives Gilman, and I really sat up and tried to figure out what in that story worked so well for me. When I sat down and did “Outbound” I had “Arkfall” kind of simmering in the back of my brain, as both template and inspiration. Both stories are very different in specifics, but I think they have strong, shared themes. I think new writers could do well to examine their favorite work by their favorite authors, and without copying per se, try to pick apart what it is those authors are doing — the size and scale of the stories, the emotional impact, the types of conflict — and bring some of that to their own work.

And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

Brad: If I can pimp anything it would be my on-line project the Emancipated Worlds Saga. It’s a big space-opera war story that I’ll be doing all year, with an eye towards consolidation and e-publication to the Kindle and other platforms by the end of 2011. (Here’s a link to the Prologue)

Thanks for the interview Annie! This was a lot of fun!!

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Thank you to Brad! You can follow him at his blog: http://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/

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