Category Archives: Conventions

On Motivation and the Quest for “It”

Contests Publishing Self-Awareness Self-Motivation Starting a Career Submissions Writers/Illustrators of the Future No Comments

A Guest Post by Kary English

Somewhere between 25 and 30 years ago, I gave up on writing. I was fresh out of high school, and my dream career was to be a fantasy writer. I’d written two or three short stories, a play and the first pages of a few novels.

We didn’t have Duotrope or The Grinder back then, so I dutifully bought myself a copy of The Writer’s Market and sent off a few submissions–all of which were soundly rejected, though a particularly kind editor encouraged me to keep writing. My final submission was to a quarterly contest for new writers that I’d read about in the back of an anthology. Surely this would be the one.

Nope. Rejected.

Clearly, I didn’t have it, whatever “it” was, so I gave up. I stopped writing and focused on college and career, marriage and motherhood.

But the thing is, I never really stopped writing. Oh, sure, I stopped writing stories intended for publication, but I wrote lots of other things instead–academic papers, classroom handouts, book blurbs, textbook chapters and anti-bullying materials. And whenever my tabletop gaming group met, I wrote up our sessions as if they were stories.

Then the Great Recession hit, and I lost my job. To make ends meet, I started writing columns for Yahoo! in the areas of news, politics, travel and gossip. It didn’t pay well, but it was fun and it got me back into the habit of writing every day. Not long after, stories started pressing their noses against the glass again.

Maybe, I thought, I could give this writer thing another try. I checked out recent issues of Analog and Asimov’s to get a sense of the field, and I hit the internet to see if that contest was still running.

The contest was Writers of the Future, and not only was it still running, but it had become one of the best ways for a new writer to gain recognition in a crowded field.

So I sat down and wrote my first story in nearly three decades. When it was finished, I sent it to Writers of the Future.

A few months later, boom. Semi-finalist.

My placement earned me a few paragraphs of feedback, and that’s where I discovered that finalist selection had come down to my story and one other, and the judge had chosen the other story. It wasn’t a win. Heck, it wasn’t even a finalist, but it was close enough that I knew I was on the right track, that whatever “it” was, maybe I had a little of it after all. And maybe if I kept writing and worked on my craft, I could acquire more of it.

That semi, combined with contest’s quarterly structure, gave me the motivation I needed to write regularly.  Over the next eighteen months, I attended several workshops and wrote six more stories. Every time I sat down to write, I mapped out the elements of craft that I’d be working on in that particular story. For one of them, it was fast pacing and a convincing male POV. For another it was a complex, non-linear structure and an ending that would make the reader cry.

Those six stories garnered four professional sales, a ghostwriting contract, a Hugo nomination and three finalist placements in WOTF, one of which went on to win. And this from a writer who thought she didn’t have it.

In the process, I also figured out what “it” is.

It’s all too easy to get discouraged in this business, and discouragement can strike at any level, from the newest aspirant to the seasoned bestseller. It–that thing you have to have to get anywhere in the writing world–isn’t talent or contacts or good ideas. It’s perseverance.

You write, and you keep on writing no matter what happens. Rejections, family obligations, your day job, moving, job loss, depression–keep writing. Take a break if you have to, but come back as soon as you can.

On the Writers of the Future Forum, we tell hopeful writers that there are only three ways out of the contest, but the advice applies to writing in general, too.

1) You win.

2) You pro out.

3) You stop entering.

Number three is entirely under the writer’s control, so don’t quit. As long as you don’t quit, you’ve narrowed the possibilities to #1 and #2, both of which lead to a career in the field. If you do quit, come back, even if it’s been decades since the last thing you wrote.

It worked for me, and that means it can work for you, too.

About the Author:Author
Kary English grew up in the snowy Midwest where she avoided siblings and frostbite by reading book after book in a warm corner behind a recliner chair. Today, Kary still spends most of her time with her head in the clouds and her nose in a book. To the great relief of her parents, she seems to be making a living at it.

Kary is a Writers of the Future winner and Hugo nominee whose work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Grantville Gazette’s Universe Annex, Writers of the Future, Vol. 31 and Galaxy’s Edge.

 

My Last Thought

Conventions Darin Calhoun Guest Posts Interacting With Professionals Professional Behavior Self-Awareness Starting a Career Superstars Writing Seminars Work-Life Balance World Fantasy Con No Comments

A Guest Post by Darin Calhoun

April 2002, I was driving to work on the 210 Freeway, just passing Irwindale, when I glanced at my rear view mirror and saw a white, Scully, Semi-Truck. My Last thought was, “Wow, he’s going fast.” I have no memory of the collision, only fragmented flashes of the aftermath. One such brief moment, I was staring at the instrument panel of my Geo Metro, and someone was holding a wad of cloth on my head. They placed my hand on it so that I could hold it myself. Someone talked to me, but I don’t remember their words or my own. A flash later, I was in a helicopter on a stretcher freezing my ass off because someone had cut up my clothes, and the doors were open. I yelled at them to close the doors. They ignored me. I remember coming around as they wheeled into the emergency room.

The doctor told me that he was going to put staples into my scalp. The skin made a squishing sound as he inspected it. I chuckled. It was like something from a bad movie. He told me there wouldn’t be much pain because there weren’t a lot of nerves back there.

“So what are your hobbies?” asked the doctor.

“I belong to the Society for Creative Anachronism, and I do medieval combat in armor with rattan weapons.”

“So, like jousting?”

“We have equestrian arts but not with heavy armored fighting. Physics works. If we use horses we would hurt each other, and it’s not cool to break your friends.”

The doctor put in the first staple. Everything faded, and a string of curse words that sounds like my voice comes from somewhere distant.

“Just two more.” said the doctor.

I hear the staple gun click, and my world faded even more. Machines chirped and beeped in alarm.

The doctor shakes me. “Hey, hey buddy. Tell me more about that jousting.”

That pissed me off. “I…to…ld…you, it’s, not jousting!”

The doctor gave me a shot of local anesthetic and stitched up the rest of my scalp. A nice four-inch crescent scar between the parietal and occipital area of my brain, the lowest part was about an inch or so above my brain stem.

After some x-rays to make sure my brains weren’t leaking out, they sent me to the recovery room to fill up my diminished blood with saline. Supposedly, I was two quarts low. Then after making a statement to the police that, I don’t recall the details of, my wife, then girlfriend, took me to her work. I nearly passed out in the car. It seemed that the saline in my blood wasn’t really helping and that I was still a few quarts low. So after twenty-four hours of observation I was clear to start my recovery.

At first, I did not realize how much I had lost. What was bad before became worse. It was a challenge just to remain awake. At first, I’d be awake for an hour or two, and then I would fade out. For two weeks, I struggled to be awake for eight hours, so I could return to work. But I was on autopilot. The hours on the bus and at work were a blur. I changed jobs, and I still don’t remember the details. I was in limbo.

Gulf War One hit and I was laid off. I was without a job for the first time in my life. I was collecting unemployment, and in a bad place, but my girlfriend was there to help me. She took me in and I pitched in with money from my disability check while I waited on my settlement from the trucking company that ran me over.

But I was just existing, a bad place for an artist. After the crash, I lost the ability to draw. I had spent twelve years in developing a career in comics, and now that was suddenly gone. To keep my sanity, I turned to writing. I took out three pages I had written five years before as a challenge, a story about a world that had neither magic nor digital technology. I worked at it. I struggled to write a single page a day. I failed more than I succeeded. I still went to the doctors, but they just wanted to give me pills and I wanted rehabilitation–a purpose for my life.

I went to a social security judge for my federal disability and he said, “Mr. Calhoun, you are impaired not disabled.”

“Yes sir, your honor.” I replied.

“If you apply to five jobs and are fired. Then I’ll reconsider your case.”

I was appalled. “Thank you, your honor, but I can’t do that. I will find another way.”

That is when I decided to become a professional writer.

Life had other plans. I received a panicked call from my ex-wife that my daughter had been taken into protective custody by Child Protective Services. After enduring, a hellish bureaucratic quagmire of jumping through hoops my girlfriend and I got custody of my daughter, and I became a househusband and a PTA dad.

My daughter loved my stories. She just hated it when I was writing. So I wrote when she was at school and when she was asleep. It took me seven years to finish my first book and I was shocked to find out why. I had undiagnosed diabetes for seven years due to the accident.

It was in 2009 when I found out. My energy and focus was crap, and my temper had a hair trigger. Although, most of the time I was angry with myself due to frustration. When I talked about it with my mom, I found out she had hypoglycemia. I never knew that about my mom. She suggested that I eat five small meals a day. I did and I felt worse. I felt that I might be diabetic so I bought a blood sugar tester at a drugstore–467.

Oh, crap!

So now, I knew. After a doctors trip, and a diabetic training session, I found out diabetes is a package deal. You get the bonus of high blood pressure and heart disease.

Triple crap!
But I felt better, and now I made the big jump, perusing a career as a writer. I read a half dozen how-to-write books. I also listened to writing podcasts (Yay, Writing Excuses!), went to writing conventions:   LtUE in Provo, and World Fantasy Con. But most importantly, I took the Superstars Writing Seminar. Which was not about craft and how to write, but giving the writer tools on how to have a successful writing career, how to set yourself up so you’re not just going from failure to failure.

In the years, after I have found out whom I am as a writer. What my voice was, and where I belong in the wild world of publishing. The Superstar members are on the cutting edge of the industry. They were surfing the e-book revolution while the big 6 (now 5) publishers were in denial of the importance of Amazon.

And just when I thought I had learned all that I could from the Superstars, I volunteered to help run the Word Fire Press booth for Wondercon. I have not worked that hard since I was holding a waterlogged, ice cold, eight-inch line during an underway replenishment in the North Atlantic when I was in the Navy. Everyone was an author, who I swear had a secret contest on who could sell the most books. I struggled to keep up with these hard working writers putting themselves out there. I learned the importance of how to set up a booth for maximum exposure, the Feng Shui of stacking books, and the art of the soft sell, and most importantly, how much stories affect our lives. From when a young man brought dog-eared books, his father had passed on to him and how that son thanked the author for the wonderful childhood memories as the author signed with ink and tears. To the veteran thanking the author for helping him through the hell of war and its aftermath–not a dry eye in the house with that one.

That is why I write. I wish to be a ray of hope in a dark world. And that is my last thought.

About the Author:Author
Darin Calhoun is an author adrift on the genre seas, with the island of Action and Adventure as his home. Be warned, as he tends to write about strong women and flawed heroes. You may see him posting on Twitter or Facebook at 3AM but this isn’t unusual. He has an abusive muse. Some writers’ muses give them a gentile tap on the shoulder, his uses a sledgehammer to the head.

Inspiration

Amanda McCarter Author's Perspective Living Deliberately Self-Awareness Starting a Career Submissions Superstars Writing Seminars Writers/Illustrators of the Future No Comments

A Guest Post from Amanda McCarter

I had a lot of trouble deciding which inspiration to write about. My whole life is full of inspiration, from bedtime stories, to family TV time, writing exercises in school. The list goes on. It took a lot of consideration to whittle it down. I suppose what’s most important is the moment I decided to take writing seriously.

Most of us have probably had that moment reading a best seller where we had to scratch our heads. The prose was clunky, the dialog awkward, the plot simplistic. But the writer, whether we liked it or not, had done something. They had caught the attention of millions.

Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code gave me one of those moments. It was a fun, quick read. I enjoyed it so much, I took a college course dissecting it. I tried to read it again for the class, but the magic was gone.

I was taken aback by how boring the book was. The first read was great, but once I knew what it was about, I couldn’t bear to read it again. It was painful. And I thought, I can do better than that.

Of course, I didn’t. Dan Brown in a good author. He wrote a fantastic novel. He caught the imaginations of people around the globe. I knew I had no hope of doing anything close to that, but it did plant the seed of something.

Years later, after a failed marriage and a move to a mountain town, I found myself alone with a crappy job and struggling to pay bills. I remembered a contest I found in high school, looking for scholarships for college.

L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest, a contest for beginning science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers with only one stipulation. The entrants could not be previously published.

Writing was something I could do. I’d written a few fanfics over the years. They were somewhat popular. But I knew someone else’s universe would never get me anywhere and I wanted to be paid for my stories. So I wrote a short story, sent it to the contest, and promptly forgot about it.

Months went by. I didn’t even remember entering. Then, one day I got this strange little letter in the mail. I hadn’t won Writers of the Future. I had, however, made it to the quarter finals (now just called an honorable mention). This meant the judge had finished my story, but it was still lacking the strength of something saleable. My story was in the top ten percent of entries.

I was excited. I told everybody. I called my mom, told my co-workers, my friends, anyone who would listen. I made it to the quarter finals in a writing competition. I could write.

Well, sort of. I had a long way to go. I still do, but that little note from a complete stranger saying that I did what the majority of contestants couldn’t on my first entry meant a lot. It told me that I had something. It motivated me to keep going.

Over the next several months, I continued to write. I wrote my first novel. I wrote a lot of bad short stories. Some good ones. I found a writing community in the Writers of the Future forums. I joined a critique group. I came to understand that being a writer meant writing every day, submitting stories, and constantly striving to get better.

As time went on, I learned to draw from my favorite authors; Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Frank Herbert. I took classes and seminars on how to be a better writer. I learned how to craft a character and form a setting. Those quarter finalists became semi-finalists. I started to self-publish my better stories and novels. Editors started giving me personal rejections.

Two years ago, I did the best thing I could for my career, prompted by my long time writing colleague, Brad Torgersen. I needed a wider group of writers, further along on the path than my current writing group. I needed more inspiration and motivation. I went to Superstars Writing Seminar.

It was a huge amount of inspiration and motivation. I got to hear from long time professionals in the field, new professionals just figuring things out, and outsiders looking in and their observations.

I won’t say it was a game changer, but it was definitely an eye opener. I started doing things differently. I saw my career differently. It became something much more tangible and will continue to do so.

I suppose, in some respects, I owe my ex-husband for my current situation. I probably never would have taken that timid step forward of submitting a short story to a contest. But I think I owe that stranger who gave me my first honorable mention more. She gave me the confidence to keep going and I will always treasure that.

About the Author:Author
Amanda McCarter grew up reading the works of Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, Frank Herbert and dozens of other fantasy and science fiction writers. As time went on, it occurred to her to write her own fantastic stories of faraway places and distant lands.

Encouraged by her mother and her family to write, a one time hobby became an obsession and a passion. An obsession she hopes to one day make full time.

Currently, Amanda lives in Tulsa, OK with her boyfriend, a snake, two cats, and two dogs. When not dreaming of faraway places and distant lands, she spends her time knitting, reading, and playing video games.