Walter Jon Williams is a successful science fiction novelist who’s been cleaning out the tax records in his garage – and writing an amusing (and informative) series of posts about the money he made (or didn’t make) in his first years as a fulltime professional.
His career began in 1979, and it’s instructive to note that the first books written by Williams weren’t even science fiction.
Sometimes, you just have to allow for change.
And yes – every writer with more than a few years under their belt should probably do a post-mortem on their early years – if only for the comic value:
1980 showed me settling into the business of being a writer. Despite the business loss, it wasn’t at all a bad year, and I was able to coast on the advance I’d been paid the previous year. I did the work, I made my deadlines, and I taught myself the business. My writing was getting better. I even managed to have a little fun.
But while I and my friends knew I was a real writer, the rest of the world had no such idea. Though I’d completed three books, none were yet in print. I labored in complete obscurity.
The next year, 1981, saw my first publications, in which the great American public saw my journeyman works and, in overwhelming numbers, yawned.
Every writer has lived through a few “yawning” years. The trick is not to let them define you.
One year in the early 90s, every campaign I wrote was basically a home run; the clients were happy, the numbers were great, and megalomania was setting in.
The very next year, every campaign I pitched came back covered in red ink, and I don’t think anything made it out of the starting gate before the third or fourth set of concepts.
Williams has seen his share of ups and downs over the course of his career, and I only hope he gives us an insider’s glimpse of them as his posts unfold.
To read the sometimes funny, sometimes poignant posts about the early career of a good writer, read about 1979 here, 1980 here, and 1981 here. To read his recent Nebula-award winning Novella (The Green Leopard Plague), click here.
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
Thanks for posting this Tom. Good timing for me.
For the past two months I’ve been in the process of letting go of my role as a mag editor for dual reasons, one being in order to take the driver’s seat with my own writing career. It’s just time. As you put it:
“Sometimes, you just have to allow for change.”
Creating the space to allow for this change has been more of a process than I could have anticipated when I first realized the change was needed and that the time was now. “Now” has evolved into what I anticipate will be a 6 month process when all is said and done, to completely step out of the editor role.
It’s calling on all of me to make this shift. It’s not been the easiest of transitions–for one thing, I’m letting go of a piece of my identity (read, ego), for another, overall I’ve loved being a managing editor (read, intensity junky – though it’s so much more than that).
I only know that moving on and carving out the space for my own writing projects and other client projects is right for me at this stage of my life & writing career.
“Sometimes, you just have to allow for change.”
Thanks for simplifying my process into one short mantra.
Hope you are doing great. ~Lisa
It’s never easy to leave something you like (or love), but little that’s truly good comes to us free of charge.
Good luck with the new direction, and drop by once in a while to let us know how it’s going.