Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

It's been awhile. Let me try to throw some thoughts together. Being out all day yesterday had a bigger affect on me than I thought. Too much sun = tired, dehydrated feeling today.

But first I did a little noodling around with ideas about YA fantasy and gay characters here and that ties into today's writerly ways. Writing commercial or writing what you love.

Ideally it would be both but that is not always the case. Lately on my author's list we've had people bemoaning the sales of SF/Fantasy LGBT stories as being poor sellers. That contemporary erotica of around 65-70K sell best and wondering how to balance writing the two. I had no real advice there because I simply do not enjoy writing contemporary fiction and have no plans of ever doing more than a short story or two. But let's dissect this a bit.

For one, I personally find it disturbing that we're dumbing down our reading to the point that we're barely at the novel mark for the best sellers. Seriously most publishing houses consider a novel over 75K and yes erotica is about 10K less. And yes I DO see people reviewing on GR whining about a book being too long (and we're not talking the 500+ page George RR Martin or Stephen King size things. THey're talking around 250-300 pages based on the word count they want). This goes along with so much writing advice I'm seeing lately that bashes the idea of using description or anything that makes the sentences slightly long, as if we can no longer think in anything longer than a twitter statement. There is some truth of that given the studies showing how much twitter destroys the brain's ability to think cogently.

Secondly I find is very disappointing that several authors I like are going to give up writing SF/Fantasy. I understand why. These authors are trying to make a living doing this and need as many sales as possible. In some strange way my crippling student debt has freed me. Unless I become the next Rowling or King (I refuse to say the author of that famous series of bullshit BSDM in the erotica ring) I can NOT make a living as an author of erotica or any other damn genre for that matter. This frees me to write what I want.

Does that make me a hobby writer? Maybe a little but a professional one if that makes sense. I know silvrethorn heard DSP's spiel at Rainbow con that to be a success you need 6 publications a year. Um, is that only in erotica because I don't know too many mainstream authors who do that. James Patterson and Nora Roberts/JD Robb spring to mind and you know that Patterson at least has a team of co-authors working for him and probably writing the bulk of the stuff. Or is that one novel and a few short stories? I don't know since I've not heard that spiel myself only through others over the last few years. If that's the case, hobby writer it is.

I find it disappointing that SF/Fantasy sells so poorly. There is interest in it. Points to just one comm alone Queer SF on facebook. there are plenty of authors AND readers there. I haven't done the math but I could if I were so moved on the m/m romance goodreads Love's Landscape ficathon. I'd bet a full third of the prompts are SF/fantasy so there IS interest. Maybe they all just want it free. I don't know.

I do know my own sales are very disappointing. I'm encouraged that I've sold a half dozen or so of the Soldiers of the Sun series in a pre-sale a month before launch. But it IS why I turned down the advance. It took most of the year to work it back with ALL my sales going into it last time. I'd rather just get my money straight up.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here other than I wish there was a bigger audience for this stuff. I'm sure there is a drop off between adult SF/Fantasy readers vs those who used to read it as a teen/YA. I suppose if I wanted to test that I could try writing a YA LGBT novel. I have considered it. Frankly I'd love not to write sex for a while. But I would also like to have romance as a secondary plot because I'm better off when that's what it is. I've considered pitching one to Wayward Ink as well (not necessarily YA) because their non-romance LGBT is open while DSP is still invite only. Sigh. Granted as a DSP author I could ask to try.

I guess I'm just sad that other authors are abandoning genres I like and that series makes it worse. Well that does make sense since it's 'romance' which is why I want out of the genre and into something less confining.

I'm sure I mentioned the fact I 'won' camp nano nearly doubling my original paltry word count.

Yearly Word Count -

57797 / 110000
(52.54%)

Blood Red Roulette (which I insist be finished in the next 5 months) -

66538 / 90000
(73.93%)

And if you don't hear from me, I think photobucket tried to give me a virus via their ads (gah). I think I got it off but who knows.

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to tell you. I keep noodling at a couple of ideas and hope they might sell. If I could finish writing anything to do with them.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking most of this pertains to LGBT romance. We know mainstream SF/Fantasy/Urban fantasy does well, or at least better

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

That could very well be.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

granted it might not be enough to quit the day job forever (judging by Barbara Hambly which depresses the holy hell out of me)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Claudia Grey quit her job as a legal secretary to write YA novels. You might know her as the fanfic writer, Yahtzee. And hers are totally original stories, not filed off fanfic.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I remember her. All I know was Hambly had many best selling series and she's still a professor worried about money

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Which is pretty frightening indeed.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah. If there was anything that made me think about stopping it was that

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

*nod nod nod*

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

Most fiction writers have to support themselves by doing other things. You're not a hobby writer.

Only 75,000 words? That's a novella. Sheesh.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose this is true. Thanks. I don't stress too much about having a day job. With my situation, seriously unless I become JK Rowling I will always have that job.

I know, right? I took the unpopular step of pointing that out and the only response (luckily I suppose) was to point out my publishing company has that as the lower limit of a novel (65K) I'm like that's NOT the point. the point is that's pathetically low.

[kiramaru7.livejournal.com]

I HATE it that we're dumbing down written works to simple sentences that we all outgrew in first & second grade. That said, I want to read something where I feel the author not only knows what they're writing about, but writes in a way that by the time I get to the end of a 500+ page book, I'm looking for the next 500 pages! Plus I don't want to read something that used to be on FF.net & has gone through the witness protection program (names changed to protect the innocent)so the author can make a few bucks. While the idea may be great, the execution usually sucks.

I guess I'm a hobby writer, cuz I write what I like & if anyone else stumbles upon it & likes it too, that's gravy. :D I guess I don't have the discipline to sit there & try & sell it. I love it that you are able to write & sell it! I think that's awesome!! :D And I feel bad you sound a bit discouraged by it. Just keep writing cuz you do have some awesome stories to tell! :D

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Trust me I hate it too. If you look at all the Don't Do articles in the last five years, it's all dumbed down twitter sized sentences and who the hell wants to read that? Not me. And I don't want to write it.

Yeah very few have gone from fanfic to good original fic

There's nothing wrong with a hobby writing. I did that most my life. But yeah I guess I'm a little depressed at the idea that you can't sell much in the genres I want to write (or at least that's true of the erotica scene which still blows my mind given how many UF/Fantasy/SF stories requested in this freebie story thing)

[kiramaru7.livejournal.com]

*nos* That's the worst! And they don't even make paragraphs out of them. T.T

That's sad. I think part of it is the mind set that says, "it's only fanfic, so it doesn't have to be 'perfect'" & it should be perfect. Cuz there are professional fanfic writers out there. I own quite a few Star Wars & Star Trek books. I also own a few Dune "fanfics" written by Herbert's son & another writer, & the more of them I read, then more I realized I was wasting good money on poor fanficcage. *sighs* So one should write the best stuff one can, like you want to get paid for it. :D

And it's fun and it's relaxing & I enjoy it, so yeah. :D That is sad that you can't write what you really want to cuz it doesn't sell well. *sighs* And you're right; that is odd given that so many want it. Perhaps they don't want to pay for it? XD

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

so true. Fanfic counts. I'm hoping at least some of my fanfic friends will move with me to the pro market and buy my stuff. Sure aren't going to do that if I suck.

Am reading bad pro fan fic now :(

I had the don't want to pay for it thought myself. I'm sure it is still a small part of the market but yeah I'm going to write what interests me! It would suck otherwise

[kiramaru7.livejournal.com]

*nods* It does! Really anything you put out there should be your best. I looked at fanficcage as something for fun, but then, I wanted it to be "good" and then it became a place to hone my writing skills. Tspecially since I like to write about the lesser known characters that don't get any love. I learned to build worlds by playing with an AU & writing back story. Now I write original stuff for my friend Jen's Madrona comm. :D *nods* Exactly!

Awe... *huggles*

*nods* Yup! And one should write to one's strengths too, which is what they love writing. :D

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I agree. Some of my stuff might be more sloppy say for the weekly challenges but for the most part everything is as good as I can make it. I still haven't reposted last year's big bang since it never got edited due to me more or less missing the deadline.

I agree

[kiramaru7.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah & things like 100 drabbles you can get away with being a bit sloppy too. I've been having fun writing SPN drabbles over at Big Pretzel. I like it cuz I don't feel comfortable writing anything longer for it. My favorite so far was writing from an inanimate object's POV & the create an OC challenge. That was as close as you could get to writing original stuff, while being a fanfic. :D

In between all your other writing, or when you need a break from that, you could always sit & edit your BB.

*nods*

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

inanimate object that had to be interesting

I DID edit some I think I have three more chapters edited. go me.

[kiramaru7.livejournal.com]

It was! :D

YAY! You can do it! *shakes my pom poms at you*

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thank you. I'm now after the time jump.

[kiramaru7.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! And YAY!! :D