Declaration of Indiependence
Fueled by my punk roots that hold fast even in my 50s (*gasp* -- I turn 54 next month), I really do still value DIY and indie spirit.
That said, I sometimes feel I'm "too indie for indie" -- much as I was "too punk for punk" back in the day (my guiding star was the idea that there was no actual look for punk -- punk was an attitude, not a fashion -- and that where style leads, fashion invariably follows).
At any rate, while I slung a few short stories to publishers and got published (including my second-place Aeon Award-winning short story, "Aegis", circa 2008), the publishing landscape was changing and venues were disappearing, and I went my own way.
I remembered trying to get trad publishers to pick up my books at the time, trying to get agents, all of that. Distant memories for me. I turned my back on all of that to self-publish and go indie.
Looking at the state of trad publishing these days, it feels like a hapless goldfish flopping on wet land, trying to find its way back in the water.
I personally think the days of the trad-published author are waning in some respects. Prized ponies in publishers' stables, yearning to ride, but still possessions of the publisher.
Maybe that's a jaundiced way of looking at it, but it's how I see it. All an agent looks for is someone whose work they can easily sell and get their commission out of them.
I've groused about the throng of junk writers out there, eating up attention, sucking the air out of the room. Or to keep the aquatic idiom going, they're like duckweed blooming, sucking the oxygen from the water.
I'm too indie for trad publishing, and I might also be too indie for indie -- I don't wade into the duckweed and pretend that everybody out there is creating AMAZING fiction. Duckweed is duckweed. Something's not good because it's indie, anymore than it's good (or bad) because it's trad.
Those few who've read my books (still painfully few) know I deliver satisfying stories. That's all that matters to me. I'm not part of the mutually self-supporting "community" that splashes in the duckweed pond, blowing kisses to each other at their unfailingly always-brilliant work (the boosterism is staggering from my objective viewpoint).
I feel like some kind of fiction frontiersman, a veritable Jeremiah Johnson of Genre, out on my own, writing what I want, what interests me, what I enjoy, and hoping that readers will find the paths I've made on my own. It's all there for adventurous readers to find.
Partly why I got away from short stories to writing novels was tied to my independence. Novels are more work, and fewer writers are willing (or able) to venture out into the wilderness of long fiction. It's simply more challenging, more arduous.
And while splashing in the duckweed pond makes one feel that they're accomplishing something, the true wilderness remains with long fiction, away from the noise, where it's just you and your characters and your writing. That's my happy place.
Dinosaur Jr | Mountain Man
That said, I sometimes feel I'm "too indie for indie" -- much as I was "too punk for punk" back in the day (my guiding star was the idea that there was no actual look for punk -- punk was an attitude, not a fashion -- and that where style leads, fashion invariably follows).
At any rate, while I slung a few short stories to publishers and got published (including my second-place Aeon Award-winning short story, "Aegis", circa 2008), the publishing landscape was changing and venues were disappearing, and I went my own way.
I remembered trying to get trad publishers to pick up my books at the time, trying to get agents, all of that. Distant memories for me. I turned my back on all of that to self-publish and go indie.
Looking at the state of trad publishing these days, it feels like a hapless goldfish flopping on wet land, trying to find its way back in the water.
I personally think the days of the trad-published author are waning in some respects. Prized ponies in publishers' stables, yearning to ride, but still possessions of the publisher.
Maybe that's a jaundiced way of looking at it, but it's how I see it. All an agent looks for is someone whose work they can easily sell and get their commission out of them.
I've groused about the throng of junk writers out there, eating up attention, sucking the air out of the room. Or to keep the aquatic idiom going, they're like duckweed blooming, sucking the oxygen from the water.
I'm too indie for trad publishing, and I might also be too indie for indie -- I don't wade into the duckweed and pretend that everybody out there is creating AMAZING fiction. Duckweed is duckweed. Something's not good because it's indie, anymore than it's good (or bad) because it's trad.
Those few who've read my books (still painfully few) know I deliver satisfying stories. That's all that matters to me. I'm not part of the mutually self-supporting "community" that splashes in the duckweed pond, blowing kisses to each other at their unfailingly always-brilliant work (the boosterism is staggering from my objective viewpoint).
I feel like some kind of fiction frontiersman, a veritable Jeremiah Johnson of Genre, out on my own, writing what I want, what interests me, what I enjoy, and hoping that readers will find the paths I've made on my own. It's all there for adventurous readers to find.
Partly why I got away from short stories to writing novels was tied to my independence. Novels are more work, and fewer writers are willing (or able) to venture out into the wilderness of long fiction. It's simply more challenging, more arduous.
And while splashing in the duckweed pond makes one feel that they're accomplishing something, the true wilderness remains with long fiction, away from the noise, where it's just you and your characters and your writing. That's my happy place.
Dinosaur Jr | Mountain Man
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