Writing and Publishing Myths
I see a lot ofwriters – mostly newer ones, I suspect – propagating various myths aboutwriting and publishing on social media. When I first started going to sciencefiction conventions in my late twenties (back in Bedrock with my good pals Fredand Barney), my friends and I would huddle between panels and talk aboutwriting “secrets” and insider info we’d heard from panelists and othercon-goers or read in how-to-write books and publications like Locus. Therewas no Internet back then or social media, but we still managed to find plentyof mistaken beliefs to discuss and adopt as best practices or professionalstandards, until eventually we gained enough experience to know better. I can’tbegin to imagine how difficult it is for writers starting out today to siftthrough all the advice they read online or watch in YouTube videos and separatethe wheat from the chaff. And it doesn’t help that some writing/publishingmyths have a grain of truth in them, although perhaps not where you’d expect,or that some myths are both true and not true, depending on how you look atthem. Following is list of writing/publishing myths – or perhaps beliefsmight be a better word – presented in no particular order, along with my takeon them.
· You mustoutline/not outline. Thisis the Plotter vs Pantser debate, and people get so passionate about which sidethey think is best that I often expect them to go to war over the issue. Iswear, it’s like a damn religion for some people! Neither approach is better orworse than the other. If one works for you, great, but that doesn’t mean itwill work for others, and you shouldn’t try to force people to adopt yourpreferred technique or chide them when they don’t. It’s also okay to do acombination of each or to change from one to the other for different projects.I tend to outline novels but then pants scenes when I develop them. I outlineshort fiction a bit but usually pants it. I outline instructional nonfiction(like this blog entry), but I don’t outline personal essays. I have no idea whythese different techniques work for me in different situations, and I don’treally care. It’s enough for me that they do. But if for some reason pantsing ashort story isn’t working for me, I’ll try outlining. Writing techniques aretools and we need to use whatever tools work best for the job we’re attemptingto do.
· You must writemany drafts/write only one draft, etc. I saw someone post about this on Twitterthe other day. She said that writers must write at least five drafts of anovel. Of course, some people agreed with her, some didn’t. The problem with somany writing/publishing myths is that inexperienced (or non-introspective)writers assume their experience is universal and applies to all writers. Hell,it won’t even apply to themselves consistently throughout their career. I workout ideas, plot threads, scenes, dialogue in my head before I sit down towrite, and I edit as I go. By the time I finish a draft, it may need a littlepolishing, but I don’t do a significant rewrite. Other people are discoverywriters, and they may need to produce any number of drafts to find out whatthey’re trying to say and exactly how they want to say it.
· You’re only a realwriter when . . . There’sno such thing as a “real” writer. All writers are real. (Some of us are evensurreal!) I think “real writer” is shorthand for “What knowledge/practices/accomplishmentsare necessary for someone to be considered a professional writer?” People wantclear, specific standards that will help them measure their career progress. Theproblem is that there aren’t such standards in the arts. There are specificsteps to follow to enter most careers, but there are none in the arts. Peoplecreate their individual paths. They can get ideas on how to forge those pathsfrom established artists, but they can never replicate the exact steps anotherwriter took to find success. Comparing ourselves to others can be a good way tolearn what to try and what to avoid, but we must be careful not to allow suchcomparisons to impact how we view ourselves. The “real writer” myth is one thatcan quickly become poisonous.
· You need to be on socialmedia – all of them. Youdon’t need to do a damn thing in the arts unless you want to, includingproducing art in the first place. Social media can help you network, find outabout markets, learn what different artists do, what works for them and whatdoesn’t, see professional (or unprofessional) behavior modeled, follow agentsand editors to learn what they’re currently looking for, etc. It can also helpyou find fellow artists to connect with so you can develop a support networkand (hopefully) not feel so alone as you work on your art and career. Yes,social media can help you reach an audience who will buy your work, but I’dargue the other benefits I mentioned are more important and will probably giveyou a better ROI on the time you devote to social media. I’ve read a number ofarticles that suggest three social media platforms is about the most a personcan keep up with comfortably, and I’ve found that’s true for me. If you onlylike one social media platform and find it fulfilling, that’s fine, and if youhate social media, to hell with it.
· Self-pub/trad-pubis best. Neitheris best. They’re just different. Self-pub gives you more overall control ofyour work and its marketing, but it takes a lot more time and effort, as wellas initial investment of money on your part (for developmental editing, coverdesign, copy-editing, etc.). A traditional publisher will provide most of thoseservices, but you may have to make compromises in terms of your story or itspresentation to the public. I think writers should try all venues at first –self-pub, traditional publishing (both large press and small press) and seewhat works best for them. You’ll also increase your odds of success this way.Maybe you never considered self-publishing, but you try it and that’s where youfind your readership. But arguing which one type of publishing is better overallis ridiculous and pointless.
· You must have betareaders or a critique group. I think by now you get the idea that Idon’t believe in musts. I do think that there are some techniques that areimportant and most writers will grow as artists and attain some level ofsuccess faster by employing them. Beta readers are one of these things. Whetheryou take a creative writing class or form a writers’ group (face-to-face orvirtual), giving feedback on others’ writing and getting feedback on your ownwork is probably the single best way to learn. Getting feedback from a professionalis best, but most professionals are too busy writing their own stuff to doin-depth feedback for others. Some writers find beta readers invaluable andcontinue using them throughout their career. Others (maybe most) use betareaders in the early stages of their career when they’re still learning, andwhen they start publishing regularly, they stop using beta readers. I lastbelonged to a writers’ group over twenty years ago. I reached a point where Iwas selling work regularly and had deadlines, and sometimes I had to submitstories before my group could get to them, especially when it came to novels.Plus, I write fast and write a lot, more than a group can comfortably keep upwith. AND my group – although it included science fiction and fantasy writers –thought a lot of my fiction was too weird and should be made more ordinary, forlack of a better word. As a working professional, I have an agent and editorsat the various publishing houses I work with. Those are all the readers I neednow. But there isn’t a damn thing wrong with being part of a writers’ groupforever, being part of a group at some times in your career and not others, orseeking out feedback only when you feel like you really need it.
· You should neverlisten to feedback because it will change your natural style and rob your workof originality. Onsome level, I guess this is one of the things I said about my former writers’group when it came to their response to my weird-ass horror fiction. But Ididn’t choose not to use their feedback from ego or laziness. I’d been gettingfeedback from teachers, friends, and writing groups for over a decade by thatpoint, and I did my best to learn from it and make my stories better. Ieventually began selling weird-ass horror short stories, and editors andreaders were responding quite favorably to them. I figured that was a good signthat I should plow ahead with that style and see how far it could take me. Ithasn’t gotten me a huge readership, but I’m happy with the work I’ve producedand that’s what’s important to me. One of the criticisms of the workshop methodof teaching creative writing is that eventually all the students’ work soundsthe same because they end up creating fiction that appeals to a group withdifferent tastes, and in order to please everyone, they have to make their workas generic and bland as needed to gain the group’s approval. Getting and usingfeedback is a balancing act. You don’t want to be so resistant to it that yourefuse to consider it, but you don’t want to wholeheartedly adopt everysuggestion, either.
· You need a degreein creative writing, preferably an MFA to be a real writer. Nope. Most writersI know don’t have a degree in English if they have any degree at all. If youwant to be a writer you need to read a lot, write a lot, get feedback on yourwork, and keep trying to improve – and you do all this until you die. Now howyou go about doing these things, especially during your earlylearning/preparation stage is up to you. If you feel like a structuredexperience guided by professional writers and working alongside like-minded peerswould be a wonderful way to grow as a writer, go for a degree. If youcan afford it, and if you can devote the time necessary. I graduatedwith an MA in Literature with a Creative Writing Concentration in 1989. Ididn’t fully understand the difference between an MA and an MFA or I would’vegotten the latter degree. I got my MA because I wanted guided instruction inLiterature with a capital L as opposed to just reading it on my own, andbecause with a graduate degree in English, I knew I could teach collegecomposition courses part time while I wrote. Eventually, I realized I lovedteaching so much I sought a full-time gig and was fortunate enough to land one(plus, I had two young daughters, so I needed to make more money and have goodhealth insurance.) Some writers think an MFA will give them some kind ofofficial status as a Real Writer, but it doesn’t. I know a number of peoplewith MFAs who haven’t written a word since graduating, as well as people whostruggle to get published as much as they did before they got their degree.There is so much information on how to write available freely available on theInternet, so many instructional videos on YouTube, so many writers talkingabout their lives, work, and process on social media, that you can teachyourself as much, if not more, than you could learn from an MFA program interms of sheer information. It’s the experience of being with good teachers,strong peers, and having time to focus on your writing that you can’t replicateon your own (not easily, anyway). Still, in the end, you don’t need no stinkin’degree to be a writer.
· You need to write whatsells/you need to write art for art’s sake. This is where the SatanicCommandment comes in: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”Whatever goals you have for your writing are good goals. Some people want tofocus solely on the art and craft, others want to focus on making money fromtheir work, and others try to find some kind of middle ground between the two.Going into the arts is a terrible way to make a steady income, but it’s afantastic way of feeding your soul and giving your life meaning. All writerswant the dream of being able to produce whatever kind of work we want, havingcritics laud it for its brilliance, having millions of readers adore it, andhave trucks full of money pull up to their houses hourly. The truth is thatonly a small fraction of the human race reads for enjoyment, and if you writeweird-ass horror like me, only a very small fraction of the human race willread it. It’s hard to make a living – even an extremely modest one – fromwriting fiction alone. Evidently writing weird-ass horror is more important tome than money or else I’d write in a more popular genre, like thrillers (buteven writing in a popular genre doesn’t guarantee monetary success). My day jobgives me and my family the money and benefits we need, plus it feeds anotherpart of my soul – and it still focuses on writing. My goal has always been tocreate a life in writing, and in that I’ve succeeded. (I’ll still take all themoney the world is willing to throw at me, though. I’m not stupid.) So writefor your own reasons, and those reasons can change from project to project aswell as throughout your life as your needs and wants change. It’s all good.
· You shouldn’twrite about people different from you; you should write about people differentthan you. Idon’t think of this as a myth so much as an artistic and ethical issue. Somewriters (often younger ones) say you shouldn’t write about anyone unlikeyourself in significant ways. As I said early, I’m a straight, white, cishetmale, and I’m fifty-nine and have lived in America all my life, most of it inOhio. I have diabetes, but my overall health is fine otherwise. If I try towrite from the perspective of a blind nonbinary teenager from Tanzania, noamount of research will help me portray this character in a truly authenticway. Plus I could unknowingly perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Also, if aneditor buys a book about this character from me, that will potentially take apublishing slot away from a writer whose life experience more closely matchesthat character. On the other hand, if we only write about characters likeourselves, we’re writing autobiography for the most part. Plus, I’ve had peopleof color tell me that if writers only include people exactly like themselves intheir stories, they’re erasing everyone else from the world of the story. So bynot including characters different from ourselves in terms of age, race, sexualidentity, gender identity, place of origin, we fail to depict the world as itis and lose the opportunity to help readers develop empathy for people who, onthe surface at least, don’t appear to be like them. So what should we do? Weshould do what we feel creatively impelled to do. If we want to write aboutsomeone very different than ourselves, we should ask why we want to do this andwhy are we the best person to tell this story? Is there someone else who couldtell it better? I’m perfectly comfortable writing about young people because Iinteract with them all the time at my college. But while I would put a youngercharacter into a horror novel, I wouldn’t write a novel about what it’s trulylike and what it means to be a younger person in America today. You’ll need tomake your own decisions on how to handle writing diverse characters, but try todo so thoughtfully and respectfully.
· You must pick aspecialty and stick to it. In other words, brand, baby, brand! Living in acapitalistic society, we’re urged to make everything – including ourselves – aneasily identifiable, simple product. We are what we do, we are our labels. It’strue that branding yourself as a sweet romance writer or a military sciencefiction writer can make it clear to readers what kind of experience yourfiction offers and will help you connect with a specific audience. That’scapitalistic thinking, but it’s also artistic thinking. As an artist, we wantto find people with whom our work resonates. But doing the same thing over andover again can get tedious for artists. So if you want to write different kindsof stories whenever you feel like it instead of producing one hardboiledmystery novel after another, do it. But if you love a certain kind of fictionand you’d love to toil in that field for the rest of your life, do that.
· You should writeevery day. Iget interviewed a lot, and I’m almost always asked if I write every day. Once aproject gets going, I tend to work at it steadily until it’s finished, so I dowrite every day then. But sometimes I enter fallow periods where I don’t writemuch, or at all. I may write story notes, play with ideas, maybe write a roughoutline as I search for a new project to work on. Sometimes I know exactly whatI want to write but getting started is hard. Sometimes my life circumstancesaren’t conducive to writing every day. It’s true that the more often you write,the more skilled you become, and the more publishable work you will produceover time. Making writing a regular practice is important. But if you hit aperiod where you don’t write every day, you’re not a failure as a writer. Justdo your best to get back to it when you can.
· You don’t need tobe a reader to be a writer. I don’t get this attitude, but it’s not anuncommon one, especially among younger people who spend all their timeconsuming visual media and playing video games. I think what most of them wouldlike is to write scripts for movies or create videogame scenarios, but it’seasier to sit down at a computer, open Word, and just start typing. Maybe theyfeel the odds of success in movies or videogames are so slim that they’llsettle for writing fiction. Can you write fiction without reading much if atall? Sure. Will it be any good? Probably not. But who knows? Maybe you’re theone genius in billions of humans who can produce great art without having hadmuch experience with the art form as audience member. If so, go with god. Mostwriters I know grew up as voracious readers and remain so. (I’m so busy all thetime these days that I don’t get to read much myself. I tend to listen toaudiobooks as I drive.) To me, not liking to read and wanting to be a writer islike not enjoying eating but wanting to be a chef.
· You must read theclassics to be a writer. Read whatever you damn well want. Whatever makes youhappy, whatever inspires you, whatever teaches you how to be a better writer.Every genre has its classics, though, and it’s not a bad idea to at leastsample them to get a feeling for what’s come before, plus you might findinspiration in classics, maybe updating their themes and narrative approachesfor a new generation. But must read them? Nope, nope, nope. Readingcontemporary fiction – the kind editors are buying and readers are currentlyreading – is arguably more important.
· You must writefast/you must take your time. Releasing shorter books more often is amarketing tactic for indie writers, so if you can write fast, that can be abenefit for you. Taking your time, though, means that you can continue toimprove a piece of writing until you believe it’s the absolute best it can bebefore you send it out into the world. But whether you write fast, slow, or inbetween, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the quality of the final work. Andyour speed may change from one project to another. If you are a slow writer,don’t take on projects with definite deadlines that you may be likely to miss.If you’re a fast writer, don’t give into the temptation to abandon a projectthe instant it’s finished and move on to another. Spend at least some time revisingand improving your work before publishing it.
· Writing awards areimportant; writing awards are meaningless. Winning an award for your writingmeans that your peers recognize that you’re doing good work. It doesn’t,however, mean no one else is doing good work. It just means that oneparticular group at one particular time chose to honor one particular writer(you). Some writers hate the entire concept of writing awards, seeing them asinspiring unnecessary competition among writers and motivating them to focus onawards as the sole purpose of writing – and then feeling like shit and thinkingthey’re a failure when they don’t win. Or if they do win, they’re tempted tobelieve they’ve Made It and might end up resting on their laurels instead of continuingto grow as artists. And since writing awards are subjective, people are alwaysgoing to argue about them. But that’s good (even if it sometimes makes people’semotions run high). Discussing what makes good writing broadens people’s ideasabout writing overall. Although some people are bewildered – and a few becomeapoplectic – that the work they view as superior wasn’t nominated for an award,let alone won. Awards are given (ideally) to promote writing in general asmuch, if not more, than to honor individual writers. Once a year, the news goesout that a group – like SFWA, HWA, MWA, WWA, etc. – has presented their awards,and people are reminded that yes, science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery,westerns, romance, literary fiction, poetry exists, and they’re given a list ofwriters they can check out, many of whom may be new to them. Winning an awardalso gives writers another way to promote themselves. I’m Multiple Bram StokerAward-Winning Author Tim Waggoner. But does this actually help your career?Like so much when it comes to promotion, no one really knows. But it can be anadditional weapon in your promotional arsenal. Bottom line: literary awards canbe a very mixed bag, but you shouldn’t allow them to distract you from yourwork or fall into the trap of believing your self-worth is tied to themsomehow.
· You must spend aton of time promoting your work. Traditionally published writers would loveto believe that publishers will do all the promotion of your work, leaving youto get on with writing. Publishers will promote your work to a certain degree,but they won’t do a ton of promotion. In general, small-press publishers willwork harder than larger publishers for their authors, but they only have somuch money to spend on promotion. Larger publishers have more money, but theygenerally wait for a writer to sell well before putting a lot of effortinto promoting them. They treat the first few novels an author puts out like alottery. The authors who sell well get more attention and money for promotion.It makes sense from a business standpoint. An already successful writer is abetter return on investment. Self-published authors have to do all of their ownpromotion, and traditionally published authors still need to promote their worktoo – if they want to. If you treat your writing as a business and youdepend on its income for your living, then you better promote the hell out ofit. But if you have a day job – as I do – you should do as much or as little promotionas you have energy and time for. If you really hate promotion – I mean loatheit – don’t do any. But whether or not you make our living from your writing, promotionis how you make readers aware of your work, and if you don’t do at least some,you leave it up to luck whether or not anyone ever finds your work. We write tobe read, so we want to get our work into the hands of readers. On the otherhand, promoting 24/7 can cause you to burn out fast (and it leaves you littleto no time to write new work). And like I said earlier, no one has a clue whatkind of promotion works, or when it does work, how to replicate that successnext time. Promotion is a gamble, but you decide how far you’re willing to gowith it.
· Real writers arecompletely and totally dedicated to their writing 24/7. This is bullshit.It’s okay to have a nonwriting job or to practice other art forms alongwith writing, whether for economic or self-actualization reasons. Plus, doingthings aside from writing gives you different experiences that you can draw onfor your writing. During the COVID lockdown, I found it harder to write fictionbecause I wasn’t getting enough input. I wasn’t going places, seeing things,talking to people . . . I wasn’t getting the raw material I needed to create mystories. Having a life outside of writing is what makes writing possible.
· There are gatekeepers/asecret writing cabal. Nope. At least not in the way that most peopleimagine. In traditional publishing, some writers’ work is accepted and some isrejected for all kinds of reasons, some on the aesthetic side (an editorprefers quiet horror, not the kind of extreme horror you write), some on thebusiness side (an editor thinks their readers will like one story more thananother, even if they’re both well written). Editors aren’t trying to keep youout of their magazine or off their publishing roster. They’re simply trying tofind the best stories of the kind they think their readers will like. And theirchoices, while informed by hopefully having read widely in their genre, are inthe end subjective. To editors, it’s not about you or your story. It’s aboutfulfilling their readers’ needs. Editors, especially in the small press, dotend to work with their friends more often than with people they don’t know.But editors became friends with these writers by publishing their work firstand then getting to know them. And they continue publishing theirwork because they like it, their readers like it, and they have a good workingrelationship with these writers. Now when it comes to writers networking withother writers, there are groups of friends and support networks that develop,and people like helping out people they like and vibe with. That’s humannature. It sucks when you’re not part of a particular friend group or supportnetwork. No one likes to be on the outside looking in. Are there people –writers, editors, publishers – who exclude others based on gender, race, genderidentity, sexuality, etc.? Of course. That kind of gatekeeping occurs, but as acishet white guy, I’m not a victim of it, and I’m not sure how often ithappens. I listen to others with direct experience of this sort ofdiscrimination and try to learn from them.
· Only writers otherthan cishet white men can get published these days. On the other hand,some disgruntled writers – white, cishet, males, naturally – complain that theyare being discriminated against in the current publishing landscape. This ishorseshit. Editors may be working on broadening the types of stories andwriters they publish, but white cishet males still dominate publishing. Somepeople just get pissed when they’re asked to scoot over and make room forothers at the table.
· You must have aliterary agent; you don’t need a literary agent. If you want yourbook to be traditionally published by a larger, mainstream house, then youdefinitely need an agent. It’s rare that these publishers look at unagentedsubmissions, but some will have open reading periods that they announce onsocial media, so if you don’t have – or don’t want – an agent, followpublishers you’re interested in on social media so you’ll be sure to see such announcements.If you want to publish books with a small press, no agent is required. Small-presspublishers will work directly with writers. And if you’re a self-publishingwriter, you don’t need a book agent. You might want one who can try to sell thefilm, TV, audio, and game rights to your book, though. And if you send an agenta query for a project, and they tell you that it doesn’t resonate with them butthey hope you’ll send them your next book, they mean it. No editor or agentwill make extra work for themselves unnecessarily, so if they ask to see yournext novel, and you’d still like to work with them, send it.
· Blurbs from otherwriters are vital for promoting your books; blurbs are meaningless. Writers hateasking other writers for promotional blurbs, and if they’re lucky, their agentor publisher will go fishing for them. Some writers believe that it’s vital tohave endorsements from other writers to help sell their books, but the truth isthere’s no proof they actually help. A blurb from a writer a reader likes mightmake them pick up a book and check it out, but it won’t make them buy it. And –based solely on anecdotal evidence I’ve seen on social media – most readers paylittle-to-no attention to blurbs. I gather blurbs from reviews of my work anduse those instead of asking other writers for them. I frequently get asked todo blurbs, but I often don’t have time to read the book before the blurbdeadline. I try to get to them, and I always feel awful when I can’t deliver.So I guess my take on blurbs is they can’t hurt and they might help, so if youwant them, go get some. Don’t be afraid to ask authors for blurbs and don’ttake it personally if they say they’re too busy, or if they say they’ll try toget to your book but don’t manage to.
· Trigger warningsare important and necessary for readers; trigger warnings aren’t necessary andcan detract from the reading experience by acting as spoilers. Both of these statementsare true and both are false. It all depends on the reader. There are ardent(and at times strident) advocates of both positions, and fights about whichapproach is better regularly flare up on social media. Some psychologistsbelieve that trigger warnings don’t prevent readers from experiencing negativereactions if they’re warned about the possibility ahead of time, and that suchwarnings can be harmful by encouraging a victim mindset, potentially delayingsomeone’s recovery from trauma. So I don’t put trigger warnings on my books.Reviewers of my books sometimes include detailed trigger warnings in theirreviews, and I have no problem with that (and it’s not like I could do anythingif I did have a problem with it). And if a publisher asked me to includetrigger warnings, I’d explain how I feel about it, and if they still insisted Iinclude them, I probably would. But you know what I don’t do? Demonize anyonewho believes trigger warnings are vital and absolutely necessary. And if you’rea proponent of trigger warnings, I don’t think you should demonize those whochoose not to include them with their work. If as a reader you insist ontrigger warnings, choose to read books that have them. If you dislike triggerwarnings, don’t read books that have them. And you can state what yourpreference is on social media without saying anyone with the opposite view isevil and uncaring or too fragile emotionally.
· Writer’s block isreal; writer’s block is not real. “I don’t believe in writers’ block.”Whenever I see someone say this on social media or on a panel at a con, I thinksome variation of, You might not believe that touching a poison dart frogwill kill you in seconds, but that’s only because you’ve never touched one.Writers who scoff at the existence of writers’ block make the same mistake thatso many humans do. They think their experience is universal. It never seems tooccur to them that someone else might have a different experience. I thinkwriters’ block is a shorthand way of referring to any number of situations thatcan interfere with a writer’s ability to regularly produce prose. Maybe you’re dealingwith health or emotional issues. Maybe your family needs you to focus on themright now and you don’t have enough energy left over for your writing. Maybeyou’ve experienced a devastating professional setback. Maybe you had to putdown a beloved pet and you’re grieving. All of the causes are different, butthe result is the same: you’re not writing. Some of these situations willresolve themselves with time. Some may necessitate you putting work in to overcomethem. I’m prone to depression, so I take meds and have gone through a lot of therapyto give me tools to deal with my depression when it gets bad. Some situationsmay require that you rearrange your life and try to find new ways of getting toyour writing. The most important thing is to understand that you are not blockedfrom writing forever. It may not be easy, but you can get past it. I regularlyrecommend the work of Eric Maisel, a therapist who helps artists deal with theemotional challenges of being a creative person: https://ericmaisel.com/
· Agents and editorsneed to understand the power they hold over writers. This is a relativelynew belief/attitude I’ve seen some writers express on social media. They railagainst editors and agents who take a while to get back to writers on submissions.(A while being anywhere from a few weeks to a year.) “Don’t theyunderstand how that makes us feel?” these writers say. “It’s not fair that theyhold so much power over us!” I get how frustrating and demoralizing it can beto wait a long time for a response from an editor or agent, and sometimes youget ghosted and never get a response. My agent and I get ghosted by editors nowand again, and if I reach out to editors on my own, I sometimes get ghostedtoo. I started writing and submitting before there was email. I remember whatit was like to check the mailbox every day, hoping there would be a responsefrom an editor or agent. Dealing with disappointment, frustration, andheartbreak is normal for creatives. The current attitude of “Don’t they understandwhat they’re doing to us?” seems like positioning yourself as a victim of abuse.And if yours was the only submission an editor or agent had to consider, a longwait time for a response would be unprofessional. But you’re competingwith hundreds of submissions that agents and editors regularly receive. Andagents and editors need to tend to authors they already work with too. And of coursethey’re human beings with lives that can impact their response times. If youhate waiting for responses, self-publish. Then you’ll have total control andwon’t have to wait for anyone. That’s one of the main benefits ofself-publishing. It seems to me that many people today believe the greatestevil they can experience is feeling bad, and if they do feel bad, someone mustbe responsible, and that someone needs to be brought to justice (even if theirpunishment is only getting called out on social media). People do experienceserious abuse, or course, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking aboutsmaller, everyday emotional difficulties and frustrations, like getting to thepharmacy three minutes after it closes or being stood up for a date. Thesethings suck, no doubt, but they don’t come close to the seriousness of actualabuse. These writers always bristle if someone advises them to develop a thickskin, but that’s the most useful thing they can do in this business. And if youdo experience super-long wait times or truly unprofessional behavior from anagent or editor (such as sexual harassment), spread the word far and wide,whether you do so publicly or within your writing network.
This entry turnedout to longer than I expected it to, and if you made it here to the end, I commendyou on your fortitude. I suppose the biggest takeaways from this entry are tonot believe in Musts in the writing world, and to remember that one sizedoesn’t fit all. Someone else’s experience of writing and publishing might bedifferent than yours and vice versa. And don’t immediately accept any writing andpublishing advice you come across without checking to see what others think andcomparing it to your own experience. And that includes my advice too.
Gather all theinformation about writing and publishing that you can, but think for yourselfand make the choices that seem best for you.
DEPARTMENT OFSHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
AHunter Called Night Out Soon
My next horrornovel for Flame Tree Press, A Hunter Called Night, will be out May 9,2023. Advanced reviews have been good! My favorite so far is from Jess atGoodreads: “If Quentin Tarantino dropped some acid and then got into an Uberwith Guillermo del Toro, who just ate a handful of magic mushrooms, and theyrode to Studio Ghibli and stumbled into Hayao Miyazaki’s office for abrainstorming session, not even they could come up with anything remotely nearthis book. Holy shit.”
Synopsis:
A sinisterbeing called Night and her panther-like Harriers stalk their quarry, a manknown only as Arron. Arron seeks refuge within an office building, a placeNight cannot go, for it’s part of the civilized world, and she’s a creature ofthe Wild. To flush Arron out, she creates Blight, a reality-warping field thatslowly transforms the building and its occupants in horrible and deadly ways.But unknown to Night, while she waits for the Blight to do its work, a group ofsurvivors from a previous attempt to capture Arron are coming for her. Thehunter is now the hunted.
Order Links
Flame Tree: https://www.flametreepublishing.com/a-hunter-called-night-isbn-9781787586345.html
AmazonPaperback: https://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Called-Night-Tim-Waggoner/dp/1787586316/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1668832377&sr=1-1
Barnes andNoble Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-hunter-called-night-tim-waggoner/1142487192?ean=9781787586314
NOOK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-hunter-called-night-tim-waggoner/1142487192?ean=9781787586352
NewAudiobook Released: Love, Death, and Madness
Three of myaward-nominated novellas of horror fiction are now available as one audiobookfrom Crossroad Press. They’re narrated by Gary Noon, who’s done a fabulous jobbringing to life a number of my previous audiobooks.
TheWinter Box
Winnerof the 2017 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
It’s Todd andHeather’s 21st anniversary. A blizzard rages outside their home, but it’s farcolder inside. Their marriage is falling apart, the love they once shared gone,in its place only bitter resentment. As the night wears on, strange things startto happen in their house—bad things. If they can work together, they might finda way to survive until morning...but only if they don’t open the Winter Box.
AKiss of Thrones
Finalistfor the 2018 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
Lonny lost hisbeloved sister Delia thirty years ago. Since then, he’s sacrificed many livesin order to return her to the world of the living, but without success. Hisnext target is Julia, a young women with a unfulfilled marriage and a passionfor ’80s horror films. She will soon discover that not only is real life morecomplicated than the movies, it’s far more terrifying.
TheMen Upstairs
Finalistfor the 2012 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novella
He finds hercrying in the lobby of a movie theater and takes her home to his apartment, astrange, beautiful woman with no last name, a mysterious past, and a powerfulsexual allure. He wants her, and she wants him. There's only one problem: theMen Upstairs. She used to belong to them—and they'll do anything to get herback.
Order Link:
ScheduledAppearances
Stokercon. Pittsburgh, June 15-18. I’ll be conducting a workshopcalled The Horror Hero’s Journey, which is about how to apply the hero’sjourney template to horror fiction. Sign-up information for the workshop isn’tavailable yet, but I’ll be sure to let you know when it is. In the meantime,here’s the link for the convention webpage:
https://www.stokercon2023.com/
Whereto Find Me Online
Want to followme on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website: www.timwaggoner.com
Twitter:@timwaggoner
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9
Instagram:tim.waggoner.scribe
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZEz6_ALPrV3tdC0V3peKNw
