You wake up one morning with the awful realisation that you just have to be mentally unbalanced, because, fundamentally people, this is a mug’s game. Any sane person would realise the odds and tiptoe away very carefully from the beast in the corner. I grew up thinking I might be a writer, but I can’t remember when and where I made that transition into madness. There was a point, somewhere.
I was speaking to a guy in Germany a few weeks ago, and he asked me why I did it. I told him that it stopped the voices in my head–not perhaps the wisest answer in the corporate environment in which I was working, but it is the true answer. I’ll be walking down the street, or sitting on a bus, or, my favourite place of all, standing in the shower, and words, snippets, phrases, a bit of dialogue will run through my head, begging to be put down on paper or screen. These little phrases scuttle throught the darkened recesses of my brain, demanding attention, and unless I do something with them, the clamour grows with the sense of unease and frustration that comes along for the ride.
So that’s it, and that’s what takes me back to why it’s madness. I don’t care whether you write horror, or science fiction or dark fantasy or literary or any of the other marketing labels that are attached to your words. Have no illusions; the Kings and the Rowlings and, dare I say it, the Browns are few and far between. The rest of us, the sloggers, the grafters are condemned to snatching time between the other things that we are forced to do to make a living, even if they’re writing related. The paying gigs, the teaching jobs, the freelence editorial work, or in my case, IT consulting are what enable us to go on. And meanwhile, in the spaces in between, the words still creep around begging for attention, even when the day job or the reality of paying those bills or a hundred other reasons hammer at the energy and consciousness that gets us from one day to the next. Is it fair? Probably not. Is it real? Oh yes.
But wait; is it really so hard? Well, let’s take short fiction as an example. I may have accumulated one hundred or so short fiction sales, but more than 1,300 rejections have come with them and the rejections keep coming and they always will. I’m pretty obsessive about tracking my submissions and my current hit rate is around 10%. That’s pretty good. These days, 95% of those sales are to proper paying markets that pay the princely sum of around three to six cents a word. Give an average wordcount of about 4,000 words, and that’s about $160 a story. In a good year, I’ll sell maybe a dozen stories. Then deduct the postage and the paper and the same for the nine other submissions it took to make that particular sale. Take the novels. Do you know how many novels earn out their advance? Forget about the smoke and mirrors that is the publisher’s accounting system, the reality is that the proportion that even see royalties is small. On average, the publishing industry copes with about a novel a year unless you are dealing with multiple publishers. So there, you’re not going to retire on that either. Meanwhile, there’s another letter in the mailbox saying “Thank you for sending us your story. It was well written and engaging, but…”
I used to frequent an online forum where an older pro happily dispensed advice. One of the things he used to say was “Those who can be discouraged should be.” He was quite happy to be the source of that discouragement. He, personally, saw it as his duty, paying forward to new and upcoming writers. If you can be discouraged, you should be, because you haven’t got what’s needed to stay in this game. Another well known writer, award-winning, respected (he works a day job too) once told me that it takes, on average, five to eight years to break and then another five to eight years before you start getting anywhere. That was when my ex-wife blanched. I’m still doing it though, and she no longer has to put up with the obsession and the focus and the time devoted to things that were not her.
Sure, I too get discouraged from time to time, I become frustrated, I doubt, I wonder why I am doing this, but in the end, I can’t help it. The words keep creeping back and if I don’t do something about them, I know they’ll never shut up.
– Jay Caselberg
10 Comments, Comment or Ping
alaneye
Right on the nose, Jay. Writing can sometimes be my greatest source of joy, and it can also be my greatest curse; turning on me, snarling and biting.
But once bitten, twice shy? It appears not. Though I do sometimes wonder if I really fall into the ‘can be discouraged’ category.
Alan
Jun 28th, 2005
Tim
Hi Jay! Long time no see! Excellent essay, and yes, it’s bloody hard work. The 8-year-rule seems pretty accurate, I feel … if you’re not Rowling, or King … I published my first novel 8 years ago, and I’ve just gone part time as a writer.
I like listening to those voices, though. It’s good when they make themselves heard, because it means your head’s working right (right for a writer I mean …)
Jun 28th, 2005
Mark Rainey
In the words of Han Solo… “Never tell me the odds!”
Jun 28th, 2005
David Niall Wilson
I suspect I know the particular curmudgeon of which ye speak…and to a point, I agree with both of you. It really isn’t easy, and to a point I am very supportive of fellow authors at every level, but there is a limit to my patience also…maybe his has been reached too many times. Who knows.
If your figures are correct on the number of years I should be nearing the brink of success. My agent will be happy to hear it (and will no doubt read it here).
That’s an astonishing short fiction output. I’m happy to say that in two years I have only a handful of rejected stories. I don’t write as many as I used to, probably average about one every 2-3 months, but I’m doing well with sell-through. Novels are eating most of the time.
Good to read another well-thought-out essay, and to see this place growing into something cool.
DNW
Jun 28th, 2005
Carl Carter
Great essay. And rather unnerving reading for a young hopeful like myself.
I guess I have an advantage that many beginners don’t, in the support of an already published author, of many years.
It helps a hell of a lot knowing that SOMEONE believes in your work.
You certainly hit the nail right on the head about the NEED to write. At times writing has been the only thing that kept me going. Stopping even for a few days can be devastating.
This site is a great source of inspiration. Thanks everyone for the fascinating essays!
Carl.
Jun 28th, 2005
Laura Anne Gilman
I’ve always wondered — are we crazier than the people who don’t hear voices? Or more sane for the listening?
(for the record, this is my 9th year in the game. So We Shall See.)
And, yes, his short fiction output is deeply annoying. Thinks he’s Jay Lake or something (only without the blinding shirts, thank god.)
Jun 28th, 2005
James Goodman
Great post. It was oddly comforting (as oppossed to out and out discouraging)to read about those time frames. I have ventured ever closer to the disgusted, er…discouraged phase, but I don’t think that I can imagine a life without my words being thrown out on a virtual paper and jumbled around until they make some sort of sense.
Sensing my aggavation with the whole publishing process, my wife has often asked me, “Why do you want to be a writer again?”
“I guess I am just a glutton for punishment.”
For me it is not a matter of want. Whether I eventually stop setting myself up to see those wonderfully impersonal rejection slips or I learn to embrace them as part of the process; I will always write. When it comes down to it, I have to write. Not so much to stop the voices in my head, but for fear of losing them.
I am so glad that this blog was started. I have yet to see a post that didn’t offer either useful information or inspiration and in most cases both.
Keep up the good work.
Jun 28th, 2005
Janet Berliner
With apologies to René Descartes: “I write, therefore I am.”
Janet
Jun 28th, 2005
Jetse
Great piece, Jay.
By way of comparison: I started writing in 1999, when I was stationed to the USA for the job for a year. I guess I did have some voices in my head, but was very good at ignoring them.
However, once I actually started writing, it was like some inner switch was flipped: I found I couldn’t stop. So I know where the madness started.
What followed, of course, where several years of honing my craft, and—frustratingly—receiving rejection slip after rejection slip. I’m not quite as productive as you (only a few writers are), but I estimate that I’ve received about 250 to 300 rejections over the years.
Then I made my first sale in April 2003 (to an anthology that also featured a story collaboration involving a certain James Hartley. Once you do get published, it’s hard to avoid sharing a ToC with either you or Jay Lake.), and another one within a week.
It’s been on and off since then: for some reason, with me the sales come in relatively short batches, after months and months of nothing but rejections.
And totally unplanned things happen…
I think your (quoted) numbers: 5 to 8 years, on average, to break, and 5 to 8 to get somewhere are in the ballpark: 4 years after I started writing to my first (very low-paying) sale, and 6 years—very recently—to my first 3 to 5 cents a word sales. And the hit rate of 10% is also a good estimate: so far this year I’ve had 8 acceptance and 41 rejections (which is almost 20%), but this was after 10 months of no sales (which brings it down to below 10%).
Stupid thing is: it never goes like you imagined it would. Last year, almost out of the blue, Andy Cox asked me to join the editorial team of the new Interzone. Now, this juggernaut is eating up the majority of my free time, diminishing my writing output in the process. The first year with Interzone seemed a very mixed blessing: I greatly love the magazine, and highly enjoy working with my colleagues, but the price seemed to be no fiction sales anymore. Of course these things are unrelated, but who said that writers are always rational?
Then, last May, when my writing had completely stopped, and the only thing I was doing in my spare time was reading Interzone email subs, the acceptances rolled in, together with two rewrite requests, and an editor asking (almost begging) for the follow-up of a story he’s just published, one I’ve only half-finished.
Of course, I’m dead chuffed with the glut of sales (probably the rest of 2005 will be barren), and a year ago I would have jumped to both rewrites immediately, and finished that second story a.s.a.p. Now, however, I hardly have the time: I just finished the May E-slushpile, am working with four writers on rewrites from the editorial side, IZ #199—with a Jay Caselberg story picked up from the May slushpile: thanks!—marks a further make-over, triggered by a new—and hopefully much better—distributor, the 200th Anniversary issue looms, not to mention Interaction, and the August email submission period.
So I’m hoping to get some writing done in July, but realistically it might not be until September. And even while I’m mostly too busy to think about it, I do have withdrawal symptoms (and the ideas and stories keep coming: if anything, I want to start a new story, instead of two rewrites, and finish four half-finished ones awaiting completion).
But I agree: even while drowning in work, these words keep coming, asking—nay demanding—to be written down…
Jun 30th, 2005
Jay Caselberg
Jetse, great to hear from you, and keep the faith, man. The time makes itself there eventually, because it has to.
Jul 1st, 2005
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