I have this delusion of grandeur that one day I’ll rise to having a delusion of grandeur. Hey, everyone has to have ambition. I have a dream…
Only like most of my dreams, the reality is like one of those half-awake nightmares that you can brief change the direction of, before slipping back towards the same relentless carnage. Somehow it always seems to involve a life-or-death crisis with me needing desperately to be somewhere, and not knowing quite where (or what) that somewhere is. As Sigmund Freud was reputed to have said, ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’ but I do wonder if my subconscious talking to me.
I’ve been writing, seriously, trying my best to make a success out of this for… more than 20 years (which, um, labels me as a battler – which is high praise in Australia, and not a winner – which is derogatory in the US. But just being still here after 20 years (and about as 15 million words) says I’m an obstinate bastard.)
I finally sold my first book after 7 years of doing just about everything a man could do wrong, wrong. I started out at a level of broke that few people can imagine – where even the money for postage was sometimes ‘that’ll have to wait until next month’. The internet was a new thing and out of our financial reach. So was any other writer contact, advice or support.
So I tried hard to work out just how this ‘wheel’ thing was supposed to work. I found if you balanced it on the round edge and then employed small teams of highly trained centipedes to march in time on it, it added a wonderful dimension to percussion, until it fell over. The whole rolling thing was plainly a silly idea, because it squashed the centipedes. In other words, I made the simple hard, but learned a lot of possibly useless skills along the way. And most of the time I wasn’t in the right place at the right moment with the right book, right patter, right… well everything (except politics where in NY right was wrong, and in the UK doubly so. Not that I knew any of that, as my grasp of the point of view of the people in the US (let alone in publishing) or anywhere but South Africa, was sort of Cora Buhlert level of well-informed (you know, the woman who doesn’t seem to know what a fascist is but has decided we here MGC are that). Alas for my delusions, I at least actually knew I was so ignorant I ought to have been happy, about writing or the world. And I didn’t have anyone to parrot, less an inclination to do so.)
The one thing that this did do was to teach me how to write just about anything. I won’t say just about anything well, but I could probably make a convincing stab at literary sf (‘If you were a stegosaurus my love we could get together back to back like sticklebricks’ would win awards I am sure) or bodice ripper romance (‘The Passionate Physiotherapist’ probably wouldn’t get far in the Romantic Times bestseller list. Just sexism, really).
I honestly don’t know if this is a good skill for an author to have, but I like to believe so. A competent hack like moi can turn his hand to most kinds of story. I’ve written humor, humor in mil sf, space opera, humor in space opera, Alternate history/fantasy, High fantasy, Steam Punk, Paranormal romance (yes, really. Twice. ) Urban fantasy, Hard sf/satire, YA contenpory with an element of fantasy. I’ve just had my first MG story accepted (HOW TO TRAIN YOUR PRINCESS – if you want something for your your eight year old for Christmas). There is often a murder mystery in my fantasy – and sf (CRAWLSPACE). I’m busy writing a cosy murder-mystery (no sf/fantasy at all) and my slate for the next year reads that, high fantasy, Space Opera-humor, Space opera, Fantasy, sf-satire. Alt history/fantasy…
Some of it (the current cosy, which involves almost no action, or blood-exposed-to-the reader, and a rather squeamish female lead character who is not familiar with the country, or country life) take me far out of my comfort zone. And they force me to think very differently each time. BOLG PI is as different from Karres as Karres is from the Heirs of Alexandria, which in turn could hardly be more different to the Rats bats and Vats universe, which could scarcely be more different to IF I WAKE BEFORE I DIE. I struggled to write some of these because… It meant a lot of learning – learning as a t first I tried to explore for what would sell, and later as I tried to make myself a slightly better writer.
You see: I’m of the opinion that, like short stories, writing that is way out of your comfort zone is a very good skill. It teaches you about yourself and about how to make your writing… feel broad. (I know, feeling broad is considered bad form these days, but really it can be enlightening and will feed back, if you do it right. (Yes, Kate, I wrote that just for the winch wench). I realized just what effect it could have when we started a little writers’ group here on the island. At first it was great just to develop basic skills – POV, dialogue, speech tags, action sequences… but pretty soon I realized that these writers were learning… but not growing. Meeting after meeting you could pick out who wrote each piece by the constancy.
So we tried something different. We tried writing pieces we were actively uncomfortable doing (no not necessarily dinosaur porn) Humor for one writer. An intellectual protagonist for another. A stupid one, portrayed in a kindly fashion for another. I wrote a piece from sympathetic new-age pagan POV, and a gay romance scene. I found both incredibly hard to do – because both are about as not me as possible. Of course their (and my) pieces were colored by the pre-existing voice and style, but it made their writing skills take a vast step upward (and maybe mine crawled out of the gutter.)
It’s worth trying. What have you written that is uncomfortable lately?
Mad Genius Club 
41 responses to “A Portrait of the author as an old Hack”
I had to include some Mac system recommendations in an article segment. Does that count?
Mac…. (shudder) no, no that’s too far. No one does that and lives.
Hey! LOL as I write this on my Mac…
More seriously, I’m attempting science fiction again. I love reading it, have written it into shorts, but the one novel I’ve got out isn’t doing well. So hopefully I can succeed in making this one work. I don’t have time to spare for missteps, right now.
Know what you mean. Twenty+ years ago I got as far as personal rejections, then decided to work as freelance in business and marketing. Made money, but it’s as exciting as kissing grandma. Fiction gets into your soul….
Good luck on the endeavor.
Thanks 🙂 My fantasy novels are doing well, but my true love is science.
Hey, Kissing my grandma was exciting! And dangerous. Very dangerous!
Well, Cedar Lass, “The Eternity Symbiote” certainly admits of a sequel. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s not doing well.
It got a couple of bad reviews. But I do plan to revisit that universe in the future. I just might step into the future a century or so 🙂
A lot of those later pushes into unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory for me were shorts. Some of them then became novels. It was a compromise between time and development.
I’ve tried fantasy several times, and produced upwards of a dozen draft manuscripts – all eminently forgettable, I fear. I’d love to write a really good fantasy in the mold of my heroes in that genre, Tolkien, Lewis, etc. – but I’m told that their style is passé now and no-one’s reading it. Right now I’m too busy with military SF (next four books are already planned), but after that, who knows?
I’ve also long wanted to try my hand at a Western. A lot of people don’t realize how much South African frontier history has in common with the USA. In the 1820-1850 period the US expanded westward; South Africa expanded eastward. Land and cattle were the driving force behind many ranches or farms in both countries. Encounters with native tribes, weapons, etc. were very similar in both counries. South Africa didn’t have a ‘Wild West’ in the same way as the USA, but then, how much of the fictional ‘Wild West’ actually existed at all? It’s become a literary and cinematic cliché rather than a historical reality. I think if I applied my experience and knowledge of the African frontier to the US frontier environment, something very interesting might come of it.
Then there’s steampunk. Dave will know what I mean when I speak of the Portuguese colonies in Africa, particularly Mozambique. I have a dream of a steampunk clash of empires where Portuguese colonial authorities in what was Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) send steampunk infiltrators to aid a Swazi uprising against the British Empire in Natal, which has its own Steampunk Sahibs who recruit Zulus to counter the Swazis. I think that might be a whole lot of fun, and I’ve been idly plotting it out bit by bit. It’s a low-priority project, but who knows? One day . . .
Add to that the fact that South Africa has no navigable rivers. That made those ox-wagons very, very important.
Judging by how Dad Red devoured Wilbur Smith’s South African books, and the plethora of westerns on the shelves up here, I’d say go for an African Western.
I’d read the heck out of that, Peter. Also, need to read more history. Stupid TBR pile taller’n me by lots.
Steampunk South African Western? Heck yes, I’d read that. A good hero, massive world some semi-mythical stuff for fun. Steampunk Quarter main.
Can I preorder?
Jefferson
Passe?
Because my observation, is that whatever scraps Christopher Tolkien manages to cobble together are selling at inflated prices better than most of what the industry produces at discounted prices.
Write faster. I’ll buy faster.
South African western? Pretty please?
I’ll add to the clamour for an African Western.
Oh, yes. Very-very yes. Write the South African Eastern. I won’t beg, it’d look silly, and I don’t want you laughing, I want you writing the South African Eastern.
As an aside, Celia Hayes (hangs out over at AtH) does more grounded Western/Texas historical fiction. Because collaborations might be fun…
I think the West of Hollywood lasted about three years. Still until the last ten years (more or less) there was a freedom of thought and action in the West that did not exist in the East. Plus we still have wild and dangerous animals … and claim-jumping is still a danger here.
Plus I would read a South African Eastern (or Northern) if you please.
Peter, the Narnia books sold 100 million copies – and both CS Lewis and Tolkien rank in the Amazon top 100 authors many years after their death. Their ranking are still very respectable on book sales. So anyone describing their style as passe… well, I should be so passe. I am in agreement with you about the the similarity of South African and US history at that time (I think you could probably add Argentina and Australia into that too). And an ‘Eastern’ from you would be a delight (a bit raw for me to consider writing, still. Mind you I want to write an African (entirely black African) fantasy set in great Zimbabwe one day. After Bob) – but that wasn’t what I was writing about… I was suggesting writing something you would be uncomfortable doing. A genre or point of view had no appeal.
“I’d love to write a really good fantasy in the mold of my heroes in that genre, Tolkien, Lewis, etc. – but I’m told that their style is passé now and no-one’s reading it.”
It’s funny that you should mention this. I’ve recently started reading Tom Simon’s books. The End of Earth and Sky took me back to reading the Narnia books and the Hobbit, where magic is very real and very British. (Simon is Canadian, but there you go). The language is very smoothly reminiscent of Lewis, witty, and somehow still freshly modern. I think he’s picked up the mantle. I’m reading Lord Talon’s Revenge now, and it’s kind of a slightly darker Princess Bride. I am laughing out loud in spots. Anyway, I’m reading it.
I tried writing gothic romance. The characters wouldn’t cooperate. I’ve done rural sci-fi, and am trying urban fantasy (old style), and have a steampunk idea lurking around. Other projects keep pushing to the fore, and then Life occasionally happens.
Old style urban fantasy?
Charles de Lint style. Not so much vampires/werwolves/sidhe in an urban setting, but a world where odd, magical things are just below the surface and appear from time-to-time.
Ahhh, that’s fun. I’m not sure how well I’d do trying my hand at that. I have this tendency to want to explain everything. Or at least make it clear to the reader.
I really enjoy Charles de Lint– He had some great ideas when fantasy was going off the rails.
Love his earlier stories. He has gotten a bit preachy in the later ones, too many woobies as a main character for one, but the early ones can be just fun. And that style has become hard to find.
I used to buy every DeLint hot off the press without a thought. Then he zinged me on a couple and now… I’m sad.
He had/has a wonderfully deft hand with the ‘magic just around the corner and out of sight’ bit.
The point, TXRed, is not that that book/story works. The point is that it feeds back into your other work, making that fuller, bigger. I still think I need that 🙂
My kneejerk response: Writing can be comfortable?
I did not know that.
🙂 Then maybe you’re doing it right. what I regard as my most difficult-to-write but possibly best written scenes felt like pulling my own teeth without anesthetic. (the scene in A MANNKIND WITCH where Signy kills her own beloved dog because it is dying painfully of acncer in the throat, I still cannot read without crying. I wrote it from life, see)
I think that just makes you a skillful writer. Plus I write in different genres as well – I started as a poet. LOL You have my sympathies and keep writing. Stubborn as hell has been applied to me several times. Oh yea, and pushy.
🙂 I don’t do pushy very well. Probe yes. (probe – a kayaking term for the long-necked idiot you send down the suicidal-looking rapid first.).
Gosh my first thought when you wrote probe– was alien probe. *snicker I am pushier when I am doing it for someone else i.e. hubby–
Romance, for me. I actually have the first chapter of a Secret Baby contemporary romance, one I wrote as an experiment in not making the H/h into complete, single-digit IQ jerks, which they almost always are in this trope. But finishing it means descriptive sex scenes and intense navel-gazing, and I don’t know which is worse.
To give a serious answer – learning to write sex scenes or navel gazing in such a way that it does not make you throw up REALLY adds to the rest of your writing. I have this theory (which is probably like most of my theories, rather like Ann Elk’s theory) that writing is a little like great food – there are contrasts in the textures and flavors but they are chosen to enhance the rest. Done right none overpower the rest, and the combined effect is greater than any single element.
Paranormal romance. Writing strictly from the female protagonist POV, lots of sexual inuendo . . . I couldn’t keep it up long enough for anything to come of it. I’m now trying a “Men’s adventure” but it’s trying to go goopy snd bring in a female POV and get all touchy-feely.
My last successful foray intothe strange was to do mysteries in my main sf/f universe, on purpose. I wasn’t able to do a “Sherlock Holmes” type of character, like I’d envisioned, but it went well enough.
Once again, Pam, that’s not strictly the point I was trying to make (my bad communication.) The piece itself is not necessarily of any real value. What is of value is the skills that one learns in doing so, that feed back into work that is of value. Every now and again, of course those pieces themselves will be great. But that is not why I do it.
I understand–and I attempted writing outside my comfort zone. I agree that learning how to write the kinds of characters that I’m bad at, the kinds of stories I dislike and so on would be good training. I just . . . fell well short of what I thought I could do. Only the mysteries made it into the public view . . . and I was dissatisfied with the difference between what I set out to write, and what ended up on the screen.