EPTanything related to writing, publishing, not starving to death in this stupid industry, fiction, whatever! ask away TL, this is all i can reasonably contribute to you wonderful people
go!
[bored] ask a published writer
| Blogs > benjammin |
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
anything related to writing, publishing, not starving to death in this stupid industry, fiction, whatever! ask away TL, this is all i can reasonably contribute to you wonderful people go! | ||
|
Zurles
United Kingdom1659 Posts
| ||
|
Xenixx
United States499 Posts
| ||
|
MuffiN
Korea (North)201 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
| ||
|
FragKrag
United States11548 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 14:54 MuffiN wrote: Why do you publish. to eat! | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 14:56 FragKrag wrote: Are you Klazart? no, but i am very july-esque | ||
|
Xenixx
United States499 Posts
On July 13 2009 14:55 benjammin wrote: short stories, working on a novel (who isn't?) good lord man, provide some details | ||
|
gchan
United States654 Posts
| ||
|
RoieTRS
United States2569 Posts
One: I think it takes courage to speak out and it should be fostered in society. Two: If you disagree you should do so respectfully. Don't fall back on prejudicial reasoning to justify your position. | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 15:07 gchan wrote: Do you have to sacrifice your personal creativity to make your material "sellable"? How did you manage to get publishers to agree to publish your material? i don't think so, there are so many places that publish short stories these days that you'll never not be able to find a place for the subject matter of your story making material "sellable" has more to do with good writing as opposed to writing what publishers may or may not want to print | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 15:12 RoieTRS wrote: For me what is wrong is twofold: One: I think it takes courage to speak out and it should be fostered in society. Two: If you disagree you should do so respectfully. Don't fall back on prejudicial reasoning to justify your position. not exactly sure what the question is here or how this applies what are you asking? | ||
motbob
United States12546 Posts
hahahaha I think it would be really cool for you to tell us what you've published, but if you don't want to we understand. | ||
|
cunninglinguists
United States925 Posts
when did you know you wanted to write? if you couldn't write but had to instead to choose another profession, what would it be? | ||
|
Grobyc
Canada18410 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 15:40 cunninglinguists wrote: what was the toughest thing in your steps to becoming published/becoming a writer? when did you know you wanted to write? if you couldn't write but had to instead to choose another profession, what would it be? i think any writer will tell you that rejection is the absolute hardest part of writing. my first publication came after 32 rejections (i saved them all). that will always be the toughest thing, as it is difficult to avoid emotional attachment to your own work. you need to develop calluses early on (or just be a masochist) or it will eat you alive. when i was an undergrad, i was an english major and grew less and less interested in literary study and phoned in most of my assignments. when i took creative writing courses, i spent nearly all my time working on my stories and cared about the work i was producing. i couldn't remember feeling that way about anything else before that and decided that this must be what i should do with my life that's a tough question since part of becoming a writer was realizing my disinterest/inability in everything else i tried. i could see myself teaching, i suppose. i've done a lot of tutoring in the past and have always enjoyed that | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 15:45 Grobyc wrote: do u actually live in the vatican? ha, no, i just chose that since i thought it was funny that it was an option (does the vatican even have internet access?) | ||
NeverGG
United Kingdom5399 Posts
 My question is - are there any genres you absolutely couldn't envision yourself ever writing? | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 15:54 NeverGG wrote: Awww thank you My question is - are there any genres you absolutely couldn't envision yourself ever writing? i try to avoid genre work altogether, so it'd be tough to pick one. the reason for that is that genre pieces are usually not allowed for submission in creative writing workshop courses, so you train writing generic fiction (generic not being used pejoratively, just to mean 'without genre' ) i'd probably struggle the most taking a harlequin romance seriously, and i really doubt my ability to write a western (born and raised city boy) | ||
|
ffswowsucks
Greece2291 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 16:12 ffswowsucks wrote: Whats ur opinion in biographies? Do you plan on writing ur own? it's a tough format since you can't really fudge the details (see: 'a million little pieces' by james frey) i definitely use events and details from my own life in my work, but to write a biography you need a much, much more interesting life than mine since that's all the source material you have to choose from | ||
|
d3_crescentia
United States4054 Posts
| ||
|
emperorchampion
Canada9496 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 16:19 d3_crescentia wrote: I hear that writing takes a lot of discipline; how much time do you spend on writing every day? i spend 3 hours a day minimum (9am-noon usually) every day working on my writing, which may range from writing something new, revising something i'm working on, or just reading i co-opted jerry seinfeld's productivity trick, which i read about on lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626.php i can't stress enough how important a routine is to improving writing ability. writing is a craft and skill like any other art. no one is expected to draw like escher the first time they pick up a pencil and no one can write like joyce the first time they try to write a story | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 16:25 emperorchampion wrote: Do you do any work with graphic meduim (graphic novels, manga, ect)? i'm just a run-of-the-mill fiction writer, but am a huge fan of art spiegelman. there's a lot to learn from those works, especially economy of words | ||
|
Athos
United States2484 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 16:38 Athos wrote: can you post any of your work here? (you'd probably sell more short stories if you gave out free samples). for more than one reason, i'd prefer not to i'm trying to share wisdom, not advertise! (besides, a short story published in a literary review typically gets paid out per page, not a percentage of the quantity sold) | ||
|
Etherone
United States1898 Posts
What motivates you to write? | ||
|
Athos
United States2484 Posts
On July 13 2009 16:47 benjammin wrote: for more than one reason, i'd prefer not to i'm trying to share wisdom, not advertise! (besides, a short story published in a literary review typically gets paid out per page, not a percentage of the quantity sold) Surely as a writer you must have some story that you're not publishing but still want to share with the world? Isn't that the point of writing, as well as blogging? I don't want to sound imposing, but it's a bit difficult to get a feel of you as writer if you're unwilling to post your own work. :/ Just by posting one excerpt of one story, your credibility would drastically increase. | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 17:09 Etherone wrote: LOL What motivates you to write? it's always hard to answer this question without just waxing poetic a professor of mine said that he was a writer because it gave his life meaning, it was the only thing he could contribute to the world that was worth anything substantial. i think i'm a version of that, but i do enjoy the challenge and the struggle, it keeps my brain active and never gets boring. plus, to have people appreciate or enjoy what you've created is better than sex, drugs, or sex on drugs | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 17:09 Athos wrote: Surely as a writer you must have some story that you're not publishing but still want to share with the world? Isn't that the point of writing, as well as blogging? I don't want to sound imposing, but it's a bit difficult to get a feel of you as writer if you're unwilling to post your own work. :/ Just by posting one excerpt of one story, your credibility would drastically increase. no problem, i'm just really trying to avoid this from becoming an analyzation of my work here's the opening scene from a story that was part of my MFA application portfolio, this is somewhat representative of my writing style: Zeke is thinking about the gun again, and has been ever since Pete had found it. Pete was looking for a football and was running his hands underneath Tom’s bed when he bumped into something sharp and pointed. He dragged out a metal box big enough for a guitar, flipped the unlocked latches open and found it. They all stared at it for a while before Ian stepped up and lifted it, slinging the unloaded M16 over his shoulder, its magazine locked in a separate case. They took turns holding it and shooting each other, making rat-tat-tat-tat sounds and each dying a long, exaggerated death. Zeke is still thinking about it and forgets to listen to Ian talking to him. They are early again, and keep forgetting how late Pete’s family eats dinner. What does it feel like to shoot it? He wonders if he could handle its recoil, or if its force would send him flying. Ian drones on some more, made worse by his habit of staring at his shoes while he talks. He leans against the wood paneling of the wall with one boot pressed against it and struggles to keep his hair out of his face. “That’s what I was saying all along,” Ian says. “You know what I mean Zeke? How can she get away with that?” Zeke nods and says yeah, unsure of what he was yeah-ing. In the distance, Zeke hears a low rumble growing, and he peeks out between shower curtain draperies to see Tom approaching. The car, a banana yellow El Camino, peels its way down the street and stops at the last possible second, inches from the bumper of Pete’s father’s station wagon. In the driveway, the El Camino idles and waits for a song’s last guitar solo to finish before it turns off. Behind sunglasses, Tom steps out of the car and looks around. He kicks the car door closed behind him, crushing a paper hamburger wrapper in his hands and tossing it carelessly at a garbage can. Every movement, Zeke thinks, seems natural, every motion building a certain cool. He spins his keychain around his finger with one hand and runs his other through his hair, his dog tags bouncing off his chest as he walks. The front door flings open and Zeke’s eyes follow Tom as he walks past them. He stomps his way up a flight of stairs and Zeke hears a door slam shut a few seconds before Pink Floyd returns. Zeke searches his pockets for something to spin around his finger, but only finds a few sticks of gum and some stolen cigarettes. He curses his luck and pulls himself off the couch to pace around the room. Ian stays motionless throughout, content to stare at his shoes and brood. | ||
Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 13 2009 17:56 Rekrul wrote: do i have a future do you want a future? | ||
|
lac29
United States1485 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 02:43 lac29 wrote: Who is your favorite author and why? Have you ever read any Proust and is he any good? thomas pynchon, apart from just finding his work entertaining, i am in constant awe of his writing, especially his absolute fearlessness and confidence in his methods. when he gets going, i don't think there's a better sentence writer in english. the best introduction to pynchon is "the crying of lot 49". it's short, but you get everything that makes pynchon great in it. if you like that, you can move on to "V." and his epic "gravity's rainbow" i have not read proust, but people rave about "in search of lost time." iirc, it's like a million words long and over a thousand pages, and i've never had the time to commit to it, though i would love to | ||
|
gchan
United States654 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 05:01 gchan wrote: How much do you get paid for each short story and/or each page published? Do you get published often enough so that you don't need a second job? If yes, how often is it? the amount typically depends on the prestige of the publication (and prestige usually just means who has the most money). i'm lucky to get about $30 per printed page for the type of places i'm submitting to. on a 20ish page story, that's only $600 before taxes. i absolutely need a second job. i don't think anyone writes/publishes at a rapid enough rate to support themselves through short story publications. however, getting published has worth beyond the monetary value, as being able to add lists of publications to a resume is invaluable. | ||
|
VIB
Brazil3567 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 05:33 VIB wrote: Why does so many people don't capitalize the first letter of each sentence when you write? Are your novels like that as well? I cAn TyPe LiKe ThIs If YoU pReFeR it's just the internet, don't sweat the small stuff | ||
|
VIB
Brazil3567 Posts
 I thought you guys had some kind of weird asian keyboard or something with no Shift. But then I notice you do use it sometimes and not other times and I'm like wtf O.oAnyway.. Do you have some kind of ritual you do when you need to come up with ideas quick? Say you need to write something on a deadline and you're out of ideas. You need to come up with something. What do you do? | ||
|
Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On July 14 2009 02:53 benjammin wrote: thomas pynchon, apart from just finding his work entertaining, i am in constant awe of his writing, especially his absolute fearlessness and confidence in his methods. when he gets going, i don't think there's a better sentence writer in english. the best introduction to pynchon is "the crying of lot 49". it's short, but you get everything that makes pynchon great in it. if you like that, you can move on to "V." and his epic "gravity's rainbow" i have not read proust, but people rave about "in search of lost time." iirc, it's like a million words long and over a thousand pages, and i've never had the time to commit to it, though i would love to Pynchon is amazing. Here's a question, as a person in college still taking creative writing courses and the like, would it still be worthwhile for me to attempt to get published? I've written something like 50 or 60 poems and several short stories. I could submit to the university's literary magazine, would that make sense, or should I aim for something larger? (I'm almost positive I'd be published in it) Oh, here's one question I've always wanted to ask someone who is published. I have one story in particular that's a very awkward length - 13,000 words. It's too long for a short story, but too short for a novella or even novelette. What should be done with works like this? | ||
|
Chef
10810 Posts
I have one story in particular that's a very awkward length - 13,000 words. It's too long for a short story, but too short for a novella or even novelette. What should be done with works like this? Just make it shorter or make it longer :O | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
the best advice i can give is just to refer again to writing every single day. you'd be surprised how prolific you can be when you force yourself to work no matter what. also, being a voracious reader will definitely help, you can find an idea just about anywhere. i've had a lot of success reading poetry and just extrapolating something i find in there. i'd also recommend keeping a memo book of some sort with you if an idea happen and write it down before you forget it. something we used to do in a writing course i took was to open up a book, flip to a random page, and blindly place your finger on a sentence in a page. take the sentence you point to and use that as the first sentence of a story. it's surprisingly effective if you are completely out of ideas and pressed for time. | ||
|
Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On July 14 2009 05:56 Chef wrote: Do you live off your writing or is this one of those "published" but doesn't sell type authors? :O Just make it shorter or make it longer :O I'm actually trying to write a counterpart of a similar length to it, and combine the two of them into a novella. Or write several counterparts and make it a novel. | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 05:52 Nevuk wrote: Pynchon is amazing. Here's a question, as a person in college still taking creative writing courses and the like, would it still be worthwhile for me to attempt to get published? I've written something like 50 or 60 poems and several short stories. I could submit to the university's literary magazine, would that make sense, or should I aim for something larger? (I'm almost positive I'd be published in it) Oh, here's one question I've always wanted to ask someone who is published. I have one story in particular that's a very awkward length - 13,000 words. It's too long for a short story, but too short for a novella or even novelette. What should be done with works like this? it's absolutely worthwhile to be published. as they say, publish or perish. a university's literary magazine is a great place to get your feet wet, but there's no fault in aiming high. your odds of getting published at a great publication will only increase when you submit something. if you are submitting poetry, most places will want your best 5-10 poems. novellas are historically the hardest things to get in print. watch for publications running novella contests, i know glimmer train will take submissions of 2,000-20,000 words a few times a year. but, since they are published so infrequently, getting it in print is going to be prohibitively difficult. best of luck! | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 05:56 Chef wrote: Do you live off your writing or is this one of those "published" but doesn't sell type authors? :O Just make it shorter or make it longer :O i'm not sure what you mean, literary quarterlies just pay you to put your work in it. they send you a check and that's it, it's up to them to sell their publication. there's not a great deal of money in it, as i wrote before. pretty much everyone is just jockeying to get a book deal by getting their work in print, that's about the only way to make a living off it. | ||
|
anderoo
Canada1876 Posts
when did you first decide on pursuing a writing career? (I realize you also have a second job, but still) How often do you submit stories? (ie, how many per year) Do you believe in natural writing talent, or is it all up to practice? | ||
|
zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 06:14 anderoo wrote: are you discouraged by the publishing industry's decline? (I'm not 100% how bad it is but I've often heard it's really bad) when did you first decide on pursuing a writing career? (I realize you also have a second job, but still) How often do you submit stories? (ie, how many per year) Do you believe in natural writing talent, or is it all up to practice? i'm more discouraged by the lack of people reading these days. i'm not sure if i can point the finger of blame on the publishing industry as a whole, but it's undeniable that book sales are on a rapid decline. the kindle and e-readers are pretty interesting, but i'm afraid that the publishing industry is just going to repeat the RIAAs mistakes as new technology emerges. i think i said this earlier, but when i was about a sophomore in college i realized that writing was the only thing i really cared about doing and cared about what i was outputting. that was a pretty big hint. i try to finish a story every month, then submit that to a dozen or so publications. i wish they had some special postage rate for writers. hm, i wonder if i can get that tax-deductible... there are two sides to this issue: no amount of natural talent will make up for hard work. i don't think i'm too naturally talented, but i am committed to working harder than everyone else. i think jaedong has a similar philosophy. however, it's very difficult to get far in writing without much praise early on. it's not impossible, but the people who end up pursuing writing were probably the people who had others telling them they were good at what they were doing when they first started. i think talent might get you rolling, but talent alone won't get you very far. | ||
|
Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 06:27 zulu_nation8 wrote: i've been reading the new yorker for the past 5 years yet my writing is still terrible. How can I write better? that's really an impossible question to answer, but reading the new yorker can't be doing any harm. my first suggestion is just to write more than you have before, but also pay special attention to revision. also, having someone willing to read your work with a sharp critical eye is invaluable. i am friends with a professor from my undergrad days who is still my first reader of all my work. it's a great tool to have, but make sure they aren't afraid to be brutal. the worst thing you can do is have a family member or a very close friend read your work, as they'll never give you the same feedback. also, if you're really committed, look for writing workshops in your area. they usually aren't too expensive and can be very useful (as well as very brutal). you'll mostly get old ladies and star trek fan fiction writers, but writing in a structured setting and getting honest feedback will be worth it. | ||
|
anderoo
Canada1876 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 06:36 Nevuk wrote: Oh, here's another one : How important to you and your writing is it to read other author's works? indispensable. the thing about writing is that there's always something to learn, if a writer ever says they have nothing to learn they are a lazy and, most likely, poor writer. i would say the author who's had the most profound impact on me was john cheever, an absolute master of the short story form. check out his collected works, but specifically "the swimmer" and "the enormous radio." | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 06:42 anderoo wrote: what is your pre-writing process like? do you outline religiously, or freestyle for the most part? pre-writing is something that i think is probably unique for every writer, and i'd recommend finding whatever works best for you. my process is pretty scatter-brained: i normally outline the individual scenes in a story, but those are always flexible. from that point, i write dialogue first, as it's usually what i struggle with the most and the most important (to me) to really solidifying a character. i like to work this way because too often i read stories where a character's dialogue seems inconsistent with how a writer has characterized them. typically, it's a character sounding too profound in a certain crucial moment of the story when nothing has really been established that would make anyone believe a character was capable of that statement. it's something to try, at least, and i think it helps the credibility of a character since i can work backwards. the negative side of my process is that very often i'll have gaping holes in my story where something is supposed to be but i haven't written it yet. a lot of times, these holes will linger and slow down the finishing of a draft. there's definitely merit in writing the story the whole way through, but it's just not what i do. | ||
|
lac29
United States1485 Posts
| ||
|
29 fps
United States5722 Posts
| ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 11:30 lac29 wrote: What newspapers, magazines, etc do you read or subscribe to? What are your opinions on the whole Klazert thing? here's the current list.. newspapers: new york times - best book review on earth washington post - next best book review on earth magazines: the new yorker - needs no introduction the atlantic - nearly as famous poets & writers - a great tool for any writer, especially as a resource for finding out about grants and contests up for grabs, as well as having good content the writer's chronicle - similar to p&w in mission, and it comes on these fantastic oversized pages etc (these are mostly literary quarterlies, alphabetically organized): AGNI American Literary Review American Short Fiction Antioch Review Conjunctions Five Points Glimmer Train Stories Iowa Review McSweeney's Mid-American Review Mississippi Review Missouri Review North American Review Quarterly West Western Humanities Review Zoetrope i should see about getting that stuff as a tax write off too... i can't say i know too much about the klazart thing, and i had never heard of the website he was using to drum up support for his book. if publishes aren't biting, i'd tell him to keep revising. what's the story there anyway? | ||
|
Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On July 14 2009 06:44 benjammin wrote: indispensable. the thing about writing is that there's always something to learn, if a writer ever says they have nothing to learn they are a lazy and, most likely, poor writer. i would say the author who's had the most profound impact on me was john cheever, an absolute master of the short story form. check out his collected works, but specifically "the swimmer" and "the enormous radio." That's encouraging to me, as I have an odd system that during the summer instead of writing I tend to read something like 3-4 books a day, I have the time to do this and find that reading an excellent work of art inspires me to write, and also to aspire to that level of writing. Even if I'm somehow roped into reading something terrible I try and figure out what I can take away from the writing (because lots of really poorly written stories are still entertaining, or I may attempt to figure out what not to do). I 'll look into John Cheever, "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis is probably my favorite short story. | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 14 2009 11:58 29 fps wrote: how do you get a book published? a whole lot of luck, first off. but seriously, the best way to get a publisher to notice your work is to shop your work around to different literary agents. they represent you and your work and then shop the work around to publishers. most major publishing houses won't read unagented work, and most decent literary agents won't represent bad work (they make more getting your book sold than they do if it doesn't, so they do have an incentive to help you). the agent is sort of like a gatekeeper between you and the publisher, and typically does a lot of the legwork for both you and the publisher. your work gains a lot of clout by having someone representing you, although it will always cost you money. | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
| ||
| ||
