A Career in Creative Writing, On Genre, and Books on My “Next” List
A Career in Creative Writing: I had an interesting week as a writer. I found this new podcast called “The Secrets“. (It was pretty easy to find the archive through iTunes.) Mike Stackpole makes a full time living as a creative writing, reason enough to listen.
I started by going through the podcasts about “career” and something occurred to me. I don’t think I’ve ever considered actually making a living this way. I’ve always thought that being a writer meant you picked your medium (for me, novelist), and then got an idea, plugged away at the novel (there’s more than enough formulas to learn from), and when you were done, shopped it around and started the next novel.
WRONG. I mean, not wrong, actually, but I never thought about it more than that til this year, and never ever considered making a living as a full time creative writer. That means doing novels and most likely short stories too. Stackpole offered some amazing advice on this topic. Since this is (without doubt) my calling, I decided that I am going to consider working towards this as my eventual goal. Now, it does mean that I need to do things that at present I’m not even sure I have the confidence to be able to do. On the other hand, if it’s my divine calling, and I TRY my best to work at the objectives proposed by those who are experts at making this kind of living, then why not?
On genre: I just finished watching “The Seeker”, a film recommended by an SF/FF I know as an adult-worthy kid flick It is a pretty good film. Of course, it is based on a book and it is geared for the YA audience. What I really liked about it was that far more than other YA book-based films (”Narnia”, “Harry Potter”), THIS one made me think of the kind of stories I liked to make up as a kid (before the concept of “writer” was on the table as a career possibility). I think this appealed to me more because of the whole time travel aspect, which I’m a freak for (thanks to “Wrinkle in Time”). I wander, if I’m really going the SF/F writer route, should I explore this genre (YA)? Just some food for thought…
Books on My “Next” List: There are two I’m excited about:
- “Book of Lies” by Brad Meltzer. Thanks to Citizen Mom for bringing this to my attention. Murder, the Bible and conspiracy, and a really COOL trailer (with Joss Whedon no less). Shades of Dan Brown??
- “Veil of Roses” by Laura Fitzgerald. Saw this in the store, and as soon as hubby is employed and I can buy books again, this too will be in the next round. Only caught her site because she is a fellow WIFFER, you ROCK, Laura!
That’s it. Over to mom-blog to update…g’night.