Increasingly, I’m asked by aspiring writers if I have any advice for getting started or “breaking in” to the writing business. I’m asked this often enough that I’m posting this here so that I can provide a more complete answer than I might otherwise have time for.
First, I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a reality check. David Gerrold, author of the Star Trek TOS episode “The Trouble With Tribbles,” and The Martian Child, says the best writing advice he can give is, “Do something else–anything else.” The cold hard reality is, the idea most people have of the writing life is a myth. Very few authors can support themselves exclusively through their writing, and those who do often struggle to consistently meet routine expenses like those for insurance and medical care. I don’t say this to discourage you, but rather to encourage realism. If you think you are going to write “the great american novel” and escape your soul-crushing day job, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
Even if you are the next Neil Gaiman or J.K. Rolling, there is no guarantee you will even enjoy their success, and if you do it might take many years to pull off. What will sustain you in the meantime? If you want to write professionally, you must be prepared to cope with persistent frustration and rejection, laughable returns on your investment of time and effort, and a level of isolation and self denial that can be corrosive to health and relationships. Plan for that, and you can manage it. Pretend it isn’t true, and likely as not, you’re in trouble. Of course, I learned much the same thing from Rob Sawyer’s website, long before I ever met him, and that’s didn’t dissuade me, and as David says (paraphrasing), if that only pisses you off, if that just makes you that much more determined to prove me wrong, if you feel you have stories inside and your head will explode if you don’t give them life, then welcome aboard, God help you, you’re a writer.
So…how to get started.
