Category: career (Page 1 of 2)

Self-Publishing: The Editor

April 13, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Don’t delay, buy today!

As an aspiring author, it’s difficult to know how good your work actually is. There are writer’s groups and beta readers, but you’re generally reliant on your peers (i.e., other unpublished authors or non-writers) for that, which can lead to mixed results. I knew that if I wanted ANH NGUYEN AND THE DISCORDIAN to be as good as it could be, I had to hire a professional editor.

In early April of 2019 I had submitted my query for THE INHABITORS, my first novel, to a Twitter competition called #RevPit. Essentially, #RevPit pairs aspiring authors with seasoned editors. Everything is done on a volunteer basis for the editors, which is pretty amazing to be honest. That’s a lot of time to work with someone for no real gain.

Anyway, I found out about this near the deadline and threw together a pitch for my three chosen editors. I wasn’t picked by any of them, but one, Sione Aeschliman (pronounced Ash-lemon) did send me a few paragraphs of feedback on my query. Not expecting anything, I was surprised to receive it. The feedback, as short as it was, really helped me to think about the story. I kept zir in mind for when I knew I would want to work with a professional editor.

Last year was that time. In November I reached out to Sione and asked if ze’d be willing to take me on. After reviewing my logline and the first ten pages of the manuscript to get a sense of whether or not ze would be a good fit, Sione agreed. Ze sent me a contract that outlined zir rate, what to expect from the read, and the timelines with which I could expect feedback. Once I agreed to those terms I sent off the novella.

I was nervous. I really felt like if Sione hated it, or felt like it wasn’t well written (considering ze was reading something like the fourth draft), then I’d have to at least consider whether or not to continue pursuing this dream. It’s unlikely I’d have given up completely (I don’t think that’s in my nature), but it would have given me pause.

Within a month I received Sione’s edit letter–10 pages of detailed feedback. Ze broke it out into three major sections:

  • General thoughts on the story and a list of zir favorite lines. I really appreciated this, as it did wonders for my confidence that I’m not actually a terrible writer.
  • Must-do suggestions to improve the story. Obviously, any suggestions from an editor to an author are just that–suggestions. But Sione felt strongly that these things needed to be addressed in order for the story to be as strong as possible. I agreed with zir and did my best to address those concerns.
  • Nice-to-have suggestions that Sione felt would improve aspects of the story, but weren’t as critical as the “must-do” ones.

Once I had a chance to review Sione’s feedback, we scheduled a one-hour video call for me to ask questions and seek clarifications. I sent over my list of questions in advance, broken into questions pertaining to this story and questions that I wanted answers for pertaining to my career (after all, I’ve never even met someone actively working in the publishing industry before). Sione answered all of my questions to the best of zir ability, bounced around ideas on how to fix some of the issues ze pointed out, and ended the call by getting to know me a bit.

What I found most valuable about this process was the way in which Sione identified my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Ze understood what I was trying to do and tailored zir feedback to that. In the process ze helped me to realize areas of my skillset I need to pay more attention to. For example, because I come from a screenwriting background I emphasize visual and auditory description over any of the other senses. There are five in total, did you know that? Prose benefits from a sense (pun intended) of them all.

I don’t believe Sione is taking clients at the moment, as ze is busy on zir own project: Inclusive Future Magazine. I recommend you contribute to the Kickstarter. You can also follow Sione on Twitter @writelearndream.

Reflections on 2020

January 1, 2021 / / 1 Comment
This is the first photo I took in 2020. The rest of the year did not live up to this moment.

Wow. Thank God 2020 is over, yeah? Nowhere to go but up, and things will never be that bad again…

… is the joke everyone is making.

I recognize that in the long arcs of our lives, dates and years are arbitrary and only useful as an organizational tool. There is no reason to make goals just because it’s a new year, just as there’s no reason not to make goals at any other point in the year.

That said, mentally there is something nice about feeling like we get a fresh start because the calendar switched over. In that sense, I wanted to do an epic(?) two-part blog post to reflect on the things that happened to me this year, personally and professionally, and then talk about my hopes for 2021. 2020 was a strange year, obviously, in nearly every part of my life. There were lots of stressors, but I have to admit that, given the circumstances, things went pretty well in my creative, professional, and personal lives.

Creative Life

I came into the year with big plans–BIG PLANS I TELL YA–and failed to meet most of them. There are plenty of reasons for that which I’ll go into when discussing my professional and personal life, but it wasn’t devoid of progress.

First, this website. I started it back in December of 2019, with the idea that it would help me to be more disciplined, build an audience, and help me to develop my “brand.” I was fairly disciplined this year, updating the blog twice per week every week except for a *ahem* nearly three-month period where I only managed two blog posts total and purposefully didn’t update during a two-week vacation I had planned. Still, that’s 77 blog posts last year, which is a personal record. I was also disciplined about the vignettes, posting one per month except for that three-month period where I was MIA.

There isn’t much to report on the audience or “brand” front. My page view and engagement numbers are low enough to not even be worth mentioning and I don’t even know what a “brand” is in my case. I initially had ideas about how to build an audience, but was unable to follow through because of time constraints. I wouldn’t exactly say I bit off more than I could chew, but my experience this year has shown me that I need to better prioritize my time and consider other avenues toward finding my people.

I did a lot of writing this year without actually completing any major projects. Still, I wrote nearly 20 vignettes and short stories, started a new screenplay, outlined my next novel, and continued work on the novella. On that front, I decided to hire a professional editor in preparation for self-publishing the novella. I’ll probably write more about that experience later, but it was definitely worthwhile. I had my confidence boosted while also learning a lot about my writing and having things about the story pointed out to me that I hadn’t considered. I’m excited to finish the revisions and show it to everyone.

So, in all it was a good stepping stone year. I didn’t make any big moves, but I put a lot of the pieces in place to make those moves later on.

Professional

This was a strange year for me, professionally. First, it was very busy. Remember when I disappeared off the face of the planet for three months? It was because of my day job and it’s probably something that will happen to me around that time every year. I should have realized that and planned for it.

I took on a lot more responsibility this year. I’ve been with my company for six and a half years at this point, and for much of that my boss has expected me to shift into a management position. I’ve always been resistant to that because it feels like if I agree to middle-management I’m dead. Life is over. That’s what I am. But that’s not (wholly) true.

In fact, over the past few years my responsibilities have grown to the point that I was an unofficial manager, anyway. I’ve been the defacto lead of our little team for a while now, and have had a direct report since 2018. In short, I was already doing the thing I had resisted doing–only I didn’t have the title or the pay to go with it.

At the end of 2019, when our end-of-year raises were released, I brought this up to my boss. I came with data on my responsibilities and how they compared to the market, my experience, and what I expected my pay to be. He ran that up the chain and the word I got back was, “We didn’t realize you were already doing so much. Here’s your promotion.” It went into effect in January and over the course of the year I’ve continued to solidify my grip on our department (i.e., grow into the role). When raises came around again this year, I was given a substantial bump (relatively–COVID prevented anyone in the company that I’m aware of from getting a huge raise) and further responsibilities.

Long story short, I’m now middle-management. Yay?

Personal

My personal goals this year, whatever they were in January, were shot to shit within a few months. And then their corpses were stomped on and dragged through the dirty streets, spit on by every passerby, until their desecrated bodies were unceremoniously thrown into a ditch and buried.

But then a funny thing happened. They were reborn into things I didn’t even know I wanted.

For one, there is Elijah. My wife and I had tried to get pregnant in 2019, with no luck, and decided to hit pause until she finishes her internship later in 2021. Life had other plans, though, and she’ll have Elijah smack in the middle of the internship, instead.

Elijah led to us buying our first house. And then that house decided to make me regret it immediately with a flooded basement and myriad other problems that houses tend to have. Searching for and buying a house during a pandemic was certainly an interesting experience. Wouldn’t recommend it, though.

Other than those two things, my personal life was quiet. Aside from a careful visit from some friends over the summer, we haven’t seen any friends or family in person since March, and I’ve only played hockey once since the initial wave. With my wife being pregnant, we decided to minimize risks. So, it’s been a lonely year in that regard. Luckily, as a writer, I’m good with loneliness. It also helps that my wife is my best friend.

***

As I said before, 2020 was a weird year for more reasons than the pandemic (although the pandemic made it more weird). I’ll outline some of my goals for 2021 next week. That’s right, blog posts are going down to once per week this year. I’ll explain why next time. So stay tuned.

It’s a low bar, but I hope everyone’s 2021 is way fucking better than their 2020.

The Hope Machine: Against All Odds

December 22, 2020 / / 0 Comments
Belle wonders what I’m doing with my life.

Way back in the halcyon days of 2014 I wrote a blog post about the Hope Machine and how it affected me. I don’t think about the Hope Machine much anymore. I honestly can’t say my motivations are that different, I’m just in a different place in my life. Recently, though, I’ve thought about it more.

First, some context.

Since 2014 (actually, starting approximately two months after I first published that blog post) I’ve had a stable, well-paying job. I’ve gotten married. Bought a house. Adopted cats. Sired a child.

My situation has changed. And so my mindset has changed. I keep coming back to the odds.

A few years ago, John August and Craig Mazin discussed the odds of becoming a professional screenwriter. I don’t remember the exact episode, and I can’t find it via searching, so I’ll just link to Scriptnotes generally because it’s great. Anyway, if memory serves, they assigned any particular person’s chance of becoming a professional screenwriter at less than the chances of someone becoming a professional athlete–somewhere in the vicinity of >1%. The difference is that when you’re competing to become a professional writer, the pool of competitors is much larger than athletes have to face, since athletes have such a limited window to be competitive.

I’ve often heard it said that only the top 1% of the top 1% (so, something like, .00001%) of people can make a living in the arts. But there is a huge pool of competition vying for eyeballs. In considering my career options, I’ve been thinking a lot about, and researching, self-publishing, especially for my less commercial writing. The numbers are intimidating. According to this chart, there were over 1,500,000 new self-published books in 2018, and that number has only been going up.

How do you separate yourself in that kind of environment to get noticed? It’s a problem that has a solution–others have done it quite successfully–but it’s one that intimidates me.

Last year I set a 3-5 year goal to replace ~40% of my income with money from writing. I drew up a tentative plan (which included this website and these blog posts!) and have stayed the course. But the further along I get, the more I think about the odds, the more I wonder if I’ve chosen the best strategy, or the right path, or even if those things exist. I don’t think they do.

And, of course, I don’t have much data to draw from. So, all I’m really going off of is anecdotal observation, paranoia, and ignorance. Which, of course, is the best way to live ones life and make important decisions.

I don’t have a strong conclusion or anything, this is just something that’s been on my mind as my wife and I await our first child, I get further ahead in my day job, and the constant push and pull between money, time, and writing tears at me a bit. I’ve always been risk averse, and am not one of those people that can get by on four hours of sleep and spend that time writing. My brain is too mushy for that. Which leaves me navigating the “safe” route to writing success and happiness.

The best course of action, at least to the rationale mind, is to keep on keepin’ on. So that’s what I’ll do. Maintain this site, publish a novella and short story collection next year, and work on my next novel. If nothing else, I do love storytelling.

Perhaps that will be enough.

Age Ain’t Nothin’ but a Number

November 5, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Look, I get that I can be kind of cynical and downright panicky sometimes, even if I do always find that little bit of hope that helps me to keep going. I spent all of my last post complaining about feeling old and several posts recently lamenting the inherent risk of choosing a subjective art form as my preferred career. I feel badly about that. To be honest, even though these are all feelings I (and I would imagine, many others) struggle with as we get older and the chances of success seem more slim, becoming a writer typically takes a long time.

This post is dedicated to those people who didn’t let their age deter them from following their dreams. The ones that spent years working their craft and made a modest career doing what they loved. The ones who struggled but kept the dream alive. The ones who maybe should have given up, but didn’t.

Let’s begin with the Nicholl Fellowship. This is the highest amateur competition around. Notice the word I italicized in the hopes of drawing your attention to it? It’s a great honor to be selected as a Nicholl Fellow and will surely lead to at least a little success, but I think you’ll find many Nicholl Fellows don’t go on to become world-famous writers. That being said, what’s the average age of a Nicholl Fellow?

36 years old, according to their Frequently Asked Questions.

Now, that doesn’t mean all of the Nicholl Fellows have been writing since they were 16 years old and took twenty years to gain even that modest bit of success. But it does mean most success stories (if not all) are not overnight.

Another example: What is the median age of writers in the WGA? The 2014 Hollywood Writers Report* states that the highest-earning writers – and the most employed – are between 41 and 50 years old. Not to say they’ve just gotten their start, but it’s taken them that long to earn their place at the top of the food chain – so to speak. You’ll also notice that only 5% of writers working in film are under the age of 31. That goes to show that those working in film, especially as writers, tend to be a bit older.

*If you read the Hollywood Writers Report, you’ll find the majority of its content is about the rather wide gap between white male writers and minority and women writers in Hollywood. That is an important topic to discuss (and broken down well in the report) but it’s way outside the purview of this particular post and maybe even this blog.

And, finally, there is this post from the Writer’s Store about relatively famous writers who didn’t succeed until much later in life. Did you know Raymond Chandler, he of the hard-boiled detective novels, didn’t publish his first novel until he was 51? That’s nearly 25 years older than I am right now!

Even though I often wonder what I’m doing as a 27 year old who wants to pursue a career as a screenwriter from Virginia of all places, I think it’s important to understand that these things don’t happen overnight. I’ve been writing for a long time, sure, but it’s only been a really serious pursuit for about two years. That’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. Now, if I’m still on this blog when I’m 47 complaining that I feel old I give any of my readers permission to tell me to quit.

Not that I will, of course.

The Ceaseless Onslaught of Adulthood or Pretension and the Act of Leaving Childhood Dreams to Children

November 3, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be an adult. I am an adult by any legal or biological definition, but I don’t necessarily feel like an adult. I’m not sure I think like an adult. I don’t particularly live the way a stereotypical adult may live. In most ways, I’m not sure I live up to the expectation of what an adult should be. Part of this feeling is the fact that I’m holding on to goals and ideals that I developed in childhood, either unable or unwilling to let them evolve into something different – like being a writer.

In a few months I’ll be turning 28 years old. In those 28 years, barring some sort of feverish inspiration or the miracle of being “discovered,” I’ll be able to point to a lot of minor successes. Black belt in a martial art that most view as more of a hobby than a threat, college degree I’ve never really used, regional dodgeball championship, writing and assistant directing an independent film, working as a “professional” – even if I was fired twice.

When I try to think of my life in those terms, it doesn’t seem so uneventful. My ambition has led me to some cool places and I’ve accomplished some unique things. But most of those accomplishments aren’t directly related to what I’ve always wanted to do, which is to write. Not to say I’ve failed, because I don’t think you can fail at something that is A.) completely subjective and B.) never given up on. If you never give up, the match is never over. You can’t call a winner until the match ends.

Still, I decided I wanted to be a writer and/or a filmmaker when I was young. I remember when writing first became a major thing for me. It was third grade. I wrote a story about a toy that turns out to be a time machine. The time machine and I go back to prehistoric times, where it loses a bolt (which was obviously the source of its time traveling powers) and we’re stranded. It was fun. It gave me a way to inhabit a world that was better than the one I’m forced to occupy day-to-day. I’ve never looked back.

But I’ve also never really figured it out. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t taken it seriously enough as a field of study until recently. So I think, “Gee, maybe I’m a late bloomer and I should focus on not being a starving artist well into my 40s or 50s.” I enter the adult world a toe at a time, always keeping an eye on my aspirations because if I don’t, they might disintegrate in the sunlight. First I move away from everything I love. Then I get a job in an office. I still write, more seriously than before, but don’t manage many steps forward. Eventually my priorities shift and things like a family, a career, and full independence seep their way into my skull, pushing the (perceived) glitz and glamor of becoming a screenwriter and working in Hollywood to the far periphery of my vision. It dawns on me that maybe it’s not as important as it once was. Maybe, just maybe, childhood dreams should be left in childhood.

Adults are supposed to live and die by routine. Adults are supposed to be responsible and hedge their bets – plan for the future while mitigating the risks that inherently presents. Adults are supposed to contribute to society in small but meaningful ways. Adults are supposed to be doing things I most definitely do not do.

The problem, in my eyes, anyway, is that being nearly 28 years old and still telling people that I want to be a writer reeks of pretension. It conjures images of people with fake glasses (“C’mon man, those fucking things don’t even have lenses.”) sitting in a coffee shop working in their own criticism-free bubble because they can’t afford an internet connection. It feels like showing off something I haven’t actually earned because to say you’re a writer automatically gives people the impression that you are, in some way, learned and disciplined and intellectual when that is rarely the actual case. It feels like I can say I want to be a writer instead of a carpenter or plumber because I have reached the pique of humanity and no longer need to develop the necessary skills to survive. Like the greek philosophers before me, my contribution to humanity will be in the form of thoughts that no one else has had. That, my friends, is not something I feel good about.

But then I pick up Bradbury. My hero. My idol. And, as it may very well turn out, my savior.

I’ve been reading his Zen in the Art of Writing and he speaks of writing as never growing up. It’s how he kept himself young until the day he died at age 91. He held onto his childhood fears and explored them as an adult. He viewed the world through the curious and giddy eyes of a child and used that constant inspiration to fuel his imagination. He didn’t let the pressures and expectations of a typical adult seep in and poison what he knew to be his creative lifeline.

The world places pressure on us to be a certain way. In childhood, it’s to conform to the latest trends – to fit in. We’re taught to follow direction, walk in line, be complacent. In adulthood, we can more easily let go of those things as we grow comfortable in our skin. We stop caring so much about fitting in. We totally ignore trends. We get better at choosing when to follow direction and when to improvise. We break out of the line. Our ambition ensures we’re never complacent. Instead, adulthood leads to new tics and commands. We’re told to be responsible. Start a family. Pay your bills. Keep out of trouble.

It’s not that I don’t agree with these lessons and commands. My problem, then, is the question of whether they can be separate from the creative life that is necessarily stuck in childhood or if there is a way to intertwine the two without undue stresses? Can I work a professional job to pay my bills while balancing a family and live half of my life in a fantasy world driven by my imagination and fears?

A better question, then: Is there a choice? Writing is what makes me happy. Over the past year and a half or so, I’ve found the chances of success as a writer of any kind slowly seeming slimmer and slimmer as my ego takes its beatings like a good soldier. Money and success are becoming less of a motivator to keep going. It has to be that way because, as I’ve learned and have had to accept, 95% of people that call themselves “artists” either hold other jobs to make ends meet or barely eke out a living in their art form. Plain and simple, that’s the reality of pursuing this sort of dream. Artists, by and by, are contractors and contractors work job-to-job with no guarantee that the one they’re working now won’t be the last one they ever work.

There has to be more to keep going. For me, it may come down to the fact that I don’t want to let go of childhood. I have the same friends I’ve had since I was a kid, why can’t I have the same ambitions? Not only does it feel safe, it makes me happy. In a world where every day can be a struggle to please someone or to get by, my friends and my ambitions help me to look forward to the next day.

Ultimately, then, maybe becoming an adult isn’t about letting go of the things we held so dearly as children. Maybe being an adult is fulfilling those responsibilities while holding on to a youthful exuberance. Maybe the act of retreating into my childhood aspirations and letting them act as a reprieve and solution to the pressures of adult life is a good thing.

Maybe, like Bradbury, writing will keep me as young as I wish I still were.

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