Lynn Abbey
The actual process of selling my first novel was exciting at the time. I was no longer an apprentice but had become a journeyman.
That bedrock faith that I could write was what blinded me to attempts to discourage me.
Thanks to bigger and better computers and their indexing capacities, I hope to keep a tighter control on what is, or isn't, in the canon, but there will always be inconsistencies, deliberate and accidental.
Some of the best advice I can give an aspiring author is trivial. Most times an editor doesn't know you from a hole in the wall when he/she opens the envelope containing your story. That manuscript is your avatar-it stands for you and makes your first impression.
Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment.
Right now I think the most interesting SF and fantasy is being done in serial television where a few sets and what have devolved into moderate-price special effects are used to support an ensemble cast and stories that focus on characters.
Persistence pays and so does a willingness to follow directions.
Our little writer's colony existed for about three years and it would take nearly that long to share the stories we accumulated.
Our authors spent as much time conspiring with one another as they did writing their stories. Over time, this meant that we published fewer stories complete in and of themselves and many, perhaps too many, that never really came to a satisfactory conclusion.
One of the risks I took was turning one of the classic fairy-tale tropes on its head. Fairy-tales tend to be about young people on the brink of adulthood discovering their destiny, powers. I had a heroine who was far enough into her adulthood to be thinking about golden years and retirement plans.
One of my great passions is the collection of historical trivia.
Once you've invested hundreds of hours in creating a coherent universe, your story's grown to around a half-million words and can't be written as anything less than a trilogy.
On the one hand, I'm looking for good stylists and storytellers who can play well with others and, on the other, I'm trying to keep Tor happy by delivering a manuscript they can market the heck out of.
Nothing is too obscure for my interest. You just never know when some quirk of science or history is going to prove useful.
No one uses a ribbon typewriter any more, but your final draft is not the time to try to wring a few more sheets out of your inkjet cartridge.
Neophyte writers tend to believe that there is something magical about ideas and that if they can just get a hold of a good one, then their futures are ensured.
My writing has to support more than my research habit, but I love to curl up with a book about some dusty corner of history.
My teacher decided that some of stories needed to be read aloud. I read without interruption-I mean totally without interruption: there wasn't a sound in the classroom until I finished and then my fellow students and my teacher applauded.
My reading is pre-screened. It takes a special talent to read dozens and dozens of stories looking for the handful that merit inclusion in a magazine or anthology.
My professional career began in early 1977 when I was recuperating from an auto accident. With one ankle broken and the other severely sprained, I found myself thinking that I could write a novel.