Neo-Pro Interview #4

Here's the fourth in my neo-pro interview series, as promised.

Today, please welcome David Steffen.

Q: Who are you? What's your genre/history/etc?

David: I'm David Steffen, and I'm a writer. (Hello, David)

I've pretty much always known that I wanted to create, but the medium

has changed as I've grown older. When I was a kid I wanted to be a

cartoonist, and I still like to doodle cartoon animals in my spare

time, but I never really stuck with it long enough to get really

proficient. Around junior high I decided I wanted to make video

games, and that stuck with me for quite some time, and I chose to

pursue a bachelor's degree of computer science toward that end. Then

I met some people who worked in the gaming industry and found out that

they worked 70-80 hours a week during a normal week, and I decided

that maybe that wasn't right for me. I like to be able to leave work

at some point. But I kept on with the computer science degree and now

I write computer vision programs for traffic control

applications–automatically detecting vehicles in the turn lane to

activate the green arrow, for instance.

I've always liked to read, and my favorite genre has always been

science fiction and fantasy, simply because there the stories need not

be limited by little things like the laws of nature or the framework

of human history. But until 2006 I never really considered that I

could be someone who wrote those stories. Somehow, those writers had

always seemed like post-human entities who had always been famous. I

mean, I knew that wasn't the case, but despite the rational truth

that's sort of the feeling I had about writers. Then in 2006, I

talked to my buddy Travis, who told me that he was writing a fantasy

novel. I mulled over this for a while and in 2007 I decided I ought

to give it a try.

So I started writing, first on a novel. I finished it in June 2008

and sent it off to Tor. Their website suggest 4-6 months turnaround

so I started work on the next novel. 12 days later, I got the Tor

rejection and decided that if markets would respond so quickly I would

need to try short stories that I could write more quickly. I sent the

novel off to Elder Signs Press, who I never did hear a response from.

From there I visited writing forums and met the friends that I met.

More than anything else, Baen's Bar critique forum was the greatest

step in my learning, as I posted and critiqued short stories and grew

in skill in leaps and bounds. My story would be very different today

if I'd sent that first manuscript to ESP first instead of Tor.

Regarding genre, I write whatever moves me on that given day. I

occasionally write mainstream, but I regularly write SF, fantasy,

horror, just whatever pops into my head at the time.

Q: What's your Race score?

David: My race score is 34 at the moment, 31 short stories and one partial

novel manuscript.

Q: When did you "get serious" about being a writer?

David: Serious? I can't afford to get too serious about it, or I won't enjoy

it anymore, and then I may as well just quit. I write what I like and

I I try to make each story my best story yet. Like I said I started

in 2007 and I've been going ever since. I made my first sale to

Pseudopod in 2009 ("The Disconnected"), which was a huge boost in

confidence, and my first story hit the masses with "The Utility of

Love" in Northern Frights Publishing's Shadows of the Emerald City

anthology. It seems like I've gotten a lot of "almost, but no" type

rejections lately so I am hoping that that is a good sign of my

chances in the near future.

Q: What are your goals with your writing?

David: Oh, I have lots of goals at varying levels of difficulty. Here's a few:

–Make a SFWA qualifying sale. (Bull Spec may be qualified soon in

which case I have a story that would be grandfathered in).

–Submit to Writers of the Future every quarter until I win or until I

disqualify myself with pro sales.

–Make a profit. I keep a tally of all my writing expenses (postage,

instructional books, etc) and all of my writing income. If I were

paid for a couple pending sales today, I would come within a few

dollars of paying for my expenses. This is very exciting!

–Qualify for SFWA

–Break into certain of my favorite markets (F&SF, Fantasy, ASIM,

Necrotic Tissue, Drabblecast, etc…)

Q:  Where do you see your career in 5 years?

David: There you go using "serious" words again. I am no good at

predictions, and even less so in writing because so much of it depends

on random chance and on the whims of individuals' taste in fiction.

All I can control is what I write, and I intend to keep at it. So, in

five years I intend to still be writing and I intend to be writing

better than I ever have before. It would be nice to have finished

another novel or two, but so far my Muse seems to prefer short stories

so we'll see what happens.

Q: Do you have a particular story or idea you are dying to write? Or, if you could write a tie-in to any established universe/franchise, what would it be?

David: I've got a few that I'd like to write that I haven't seemed to

actually wrap a story around. In particular, I keep coming back to a

Pinocchio retelling novel but so far I haven't pulled it off yet.

As far as established universes, there are no current ones that I'd

like to get into. My first published story, "The Utility of Love", is

a horror retelling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Oz has always been

one of my favorite worlds and I was very excited to take it and focus

on the parts of the original story that really bothered me. I'd love

to do a Wonderland retelling too, but the original is so meandering

it's hard to do a coherent retelling. And I'm not good enough at

nonsense to do Lewis Carroll's story credit.

Q: What are your hobbies outside writing?

David: Oh, all things media, mostly. I love to watch movies, read

books/magazines, play video games. I'm trying a bit of sketching on

the side. Going hiking with or without the dogs is always fun.

Watching hockey.

Q: What's your writing process like?

David: A lot of things vary about my writing process, but I try to keep at

least some constants. On work days I can get ready for work in about

30 minutes, usually. But I make a habit of getting up an hour earlier

than that and I sit at my desk for most of my time and write whatever

I can. That's the time of day when my brain is the sharpest, and when

my wife and dogs are zonked out sleeping, so I can usually get a chunk

of writing time in there. I might get a bit more in at lunch on some

days, but that's no guarantee. And then I do what I can.

Generally I only work on one project at a time because if I switch

projects in the middle I tend not to return to them. And I've learned

that on the first draft I've just gotta write it as fast as I can or I

will lose momentum. Plot holes, bad wording, that can all be fixed

later and once I type THE END on a rough draft I have never neglected

to go back and polish it, but if I agonize over every word choice as I

go I lose momentum and then I get frustrated and sidetracked.

Q: What's been toughest about your journey so far as a writer? How do you keep yourself going?

David: For me I think the toughest thing is just trying to go with the flow.

So much of writing "success" is just plain out of my control and when

I stress out about it I gain nothing but ulcers. Everything hinges on

editorial choices. No matter how good you are, there will be editors

who just don't dig your style. When you're a relative unknown you

don't have Name Fame working in your favor and you've just gotta live

with the fact that if you submit a story of equal quality to a Big

Name writer, your story will not be accepted. And probably won't be

accepted even if your story is better (for some definition of better).

It sucks, but it's true.

I also have learned that my "ideal writing conditions" seem to flux

every few months. Right now I am writing slow but steady, other times

in a frenzy, other times I may go a month without working much on

anything. My Muse is fickle and likes to change her pattern. If I

get worked up about it, I get nothing but worry. All I can do is make

sure that I sit in my writing desk every day and do what I can.

Q: Any tips or tricks you've figured out for improving your writing?

David: I have very strong feelings about point of view and how it is best

used in a story. Many of these feelings are outlined in this article.

The base of the ideas I got from the amazing book "Self-Editing for

Fiction Writers" by Browne and King, the only instructional book I

recommend. It's not geared specifically toward speculative fiction

but is an amazing tool for learning some aspects of writing, with

concrete examples, excerpts from real books of good uses and bad uses.

I added some of my own stuff and my own examples but I recommend that

book for anyone who wants to write fiction.

Q: And finally, got anything you want to pimp?

David: I co-edit a nonfiction zine focused on everything related to

speculative fiction: http://www.diabolicalplots.com . I post

interviews of writers and editors, reviews, "best of" lists, website

recommendations and so on.

I have my second Pseudopod story coming up, a reprint of my most

well-received story "What Makes You Tick." Watch for it some time

soonish.

If you want a full bibliography of my published work (4 short stories

in various formats plus some nonfiction articles), check out my biblio

page .