The biggest challenge to writing fulltime is keeping up your output, which, for me, means keeping up my interest. I write fiction and non-fiction, in various forms, at various lengths and on various subjects. The variation keeps it interesting. The dilemma for most writers is that for them only one particular form, length, or subject, either in fiction or non-fiction, is likely to get traction with the publishing houses. In a world before websites and online publishing much of the off-topic, sub-optimal-length or slow-selling-category material a writer produced just to keep his creative juices flowing and hone his skills would go onto his shelves and never get published, unless he became posthumously famous and an editor went through his rejected and un-submitted material and generated some income for his inheritors.
Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien are two writers whose posthumous publication rivaled or exceeded what they managed to see in print during their lives. Now, thanks to the economy of publishing online, a schizophrenic writer like me can make his entire body of work available to the 62 people on the planet who still read. So, when I get up at 3:00 AM wanting to write fiction, but interested in something other than my current project, I can do a vignette, short, novelette or novella and hand it to Charles on Saturday morning just before he beats me with that rattan stick. And then you can read it here.
In keeping with this writing method I generally maintain five to ten outlines for each subject I write on. As I write this I have fifteen pieces outlined in my Harm City folder, and three in this folder. Some might languish there for years until they catch my fancy again.
The first title released here is By This Axe! This novelette, took three days to write, providing me with the adolescent joy of a long weekend away from my assigned project, and belongs to that hybrid ‘science-fantasy’ demi-genre which fell out of favor with publishers in the early 1980s. If my family uses anything to get me committed to an asylum it should be this, my version of Beowulf.
I currently have outlines and drafts for a number of pieces in the science-fiction and historical-fiction categories. In the long run I am interested in writing shorts in all of the areas in which I write non-fiction. Also, the possibility of a stand-alone novel appearing here is not out of the question.
A genre fiction writer who intends to write for publication cannot expect to land a book deal unless he can produce a series of three or more books. This has led inevitably to some longwinded prose, particularly in the fantasy field. Online publishing once again makes it economically feasible for a writer to attempt a stand-alone piece of fiction. I know some readers have great reservations about the trend toward electronic publishing. In this small way though, the Information Age is turning back the clock to the 1970s when a writer was not obliged to sell a sequel and might craft a story with a beginning, and even an end.
James LaFond, Thursday February 23rd 2012
