EXERCISE: Do you remember?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 23 March 2010

LiveJournal provides these writing prompts, updated daily. This one seemed particularly interesting for me, since I have to think back a ways.

What's the first major news event that you remember hearing about as a child? Where did you learn about it? How did it impact your world view?

I think the first one I really remember is JFK's assassination -- Nov. 22, 1963, according to Wikipedia. I was in school, and the principal interrupted everything, announcing that the President had been killed. He closed the school and sent us home, which meant I had to walk home (buses were being used for those who lived further away). And I still remember the sense of fear and loss, both at the announcement and then walking home. Funny, I could swear that I walked home alone, but there were other kids who lived in that same area.

Impact on world view? I think this shook everyone. Here was JFK, the man who gave voice to our hopes and dreams, and he was dead. Was anyone safe? And then the many questions about who was involved, etc. that still continue to be raised. This was kind of the first in several -- JFK, Martin Luther King, others -- that made those of us from that generation feel both the need to stand up and speak out, and that made us aware of the price that such a stance can cost.

Anyway -- what's your first major news event? And what did you learn from it?

WOW: Breaking in as a novelist...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 24 March 2010

Jim Hines wondered about the actual truth of breaking in as a novelist, and instead of just offering up his anecdote, did a survey of published novelists. Now, you might quibble about the methodology and what not, but there's still a pile of interesting information. So... go to

http://www.sfnovelists.com/2010/03/24/first-pro-novel-survey-results/

and then follow the links to the various results. Helps put data behind such questions as:

• Do short stories help publication? (116 of 246 sold their first novel without short fiction sales)
• What about self-publishing and publication? (The main path is submitting to agent, who sells to publisher. Second most popular is submit to publisher.)
• Are writers overnight successes? (Average is about 11-12 years. Median/mode 10 years. Overnight? Not exactly.)
• Do you have to know somebody? (140 of 246 sold without connection to agent or publisher.)

Go ahead. Find out what's really behind those authors getting published.

Then decide what your goal is in writing. And if you want to get published, now you've got some information about what it takes.