Has anyone here been published? And...

[Zubi-Ondo]

Originally Posted by Mary Hoffman

Now I just write to commission but that could all fall apart tomorrow ...

Could you please explain "Write to commission"? (I can sort of guess, but I'd like to know exactly) Thanks.

Originally Posted by Mary Hoffman

Best of luck with your own writing.
Mary

Thank you. I am a computer engineer, so I make a pretty good living, and writing is a hobby for me. I won't really mind if my book takes me 10 years, because the story I want to tell is solidly lodged in my brain with motivation from my heart. I really started this thread for another member who is having trouble with, shall we say, his priorities. He's trying to find the right balance between his writing, and college work. My guess was that a lot of successful writers start out with lots of practice, and plenty of day jobs before they get "launched". I suspect if he reads this, he'll know who I was referring to.

- Z.

[Commonmind]

I was published several times while I was younger, both by submission and as a result of winning competitions. I do not live off my writing, in any way; I lost interest in writing after college as I was running several businesses and simply didn't have the time or energy to invest in the creative process, so I ended up putting down most of the projects I was working on at the time and only picked them back up these past few years.

Of the few of books I've actually finished, the average completion time was 1.5 years. Nothing I plan on sending out for publication, however, as some of them are more personal diatribes and fictional doodles than anything worthy of the bookshelf. My current work has taken my partner and I about a year to reach what we assume is the halfway point -- so in another year and some change we'll likely have a finished novel.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Zubi-Ondo

Could you please explain "Write to commission"? (I can sort of guess, but I'd like to know exactly) Thanks.

It's not a term I've heard used over here in regard to writing, but Mary undoubtedly means that she only writes a book when she has a contract to do so -- having already sold the book on a partial, an outline, or simply on the pitch.

[Shingetsu]

It kind of sounds like writing for commission takes the fun out of the process. As if you weren’t going to continue to write books in a series you started unless someone gave you the money or the go-ahead before hand. It seems to me if you loved writing that you would write the next book and if the same publisher didn’t take it as the last one, that you’d find a new one and keep going. That’s just the view point from the unenlightened me. I don’t actually know anything about it.

[Commonmind]

I think it's more of a blessing being able to do the thing you enjoy most as both a hobby and career. And writing for commission doesn't necessarily mean you're doling out homogenized work which lacks any real soul -- refer to what Teresa said above.

[Shingetsu]

Well, I didn't mean any less thought or soul put into the work. But if something isn't commissioned that you want to write...Does that mean you don't do it? I'm all for the writing as a career though. But that takes quality and quantity.

[flynx]

I think the confusion is in the word "commission." When you send in your 3 chapters plus synopsis you are actually seeking a commission.

If you write regularly for a magazine but not on wages then your work has been commissioned.

[Zubi-Ondo]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

... but Mary undoubtedly means that she only writes a book when she has a contract to do so -- having already sold the book on a partial, an outline, or simply on the pitch.

If this is what she meant, I not only think its a blessing, but I don't think it would take the fun out of it as long as you still have control, and you are the original creator of the story idea. I think the whole point people are trying to make is that if someone told you what to write, it wouldn't be much fun, and/or it wouldn't have much soul.

- Z.

[Teresa Edgerton]

In order to be able to support yourself as a writer, you have to have a steady income, and that means you can't go around writing whole books on spec. Otherwise, you might work on something for a year and not get paid. (And believe me, few of us make enough money from writing that we could afford to do that.) Most writers do their writing on contract after the first book or two. And you can pretty well bet that your favorite writer gets the contract first and writes the book afterward.

Obviously, a writer is not going to submit a partial or an outline for something he or she is not already eager to write. Likewise, with series books it would be rather unfair to readers if a writer started something without being convinced that the desire to write the next few books was going to be there at the right time. Writers who have been writing for a while and completed several books usually have a very good idea whether or not a certain plot and group of characters is going to keep them interested for the next few years.

It kind of sounds like writing for commission takes the fun out of the process ... It seems to me if you loved writing that you would write the next book and if the same publisher didn’t take it as the last one, that you’d find a new one and keep going.

Usually, that's not how it works. If you're writing a series and the publisher has some reason for not publishing the next book, that reason is very likely to discourage other publishers, too. (Not inevitably, but in most cases.) If you want to be sure that next book you really want to write will really be published, a multi-book contract is the best assurance you can have. But when you propose a new project and the publisher who has the option doesn't want it, then you do go looking for someone else to publish it. If no one is interested, you either get another job or you dig down deep inside and come up with another idea you want to work on, and start submitting that to publishers.

Also, to be frank, once you start doing anything professionally instead of as an amateur, a lot of the fun does go out of it, but that doesn't mean you can't still craft your books with love and care. Once you decide to do something seriously, it's no longer all about fun, it's about your passion for the work and honing your skills.

[Shingetsu]

Ah, thanks for the clarification Teresa. I was just commenting on the context of the way it sounded, I didn’t really have enough knowledge or information about it to make a real riposte. Insight for the future. Learn a new thing everyday.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Zubi-Ondo

I think the whole point people are trying to make is that if someone told you what to write, it wouldn't be much fun, and/or it wouldn't have much soul.

Well, there are work-for-hire situations (quite different from the multi-book contract to write what you already intended to write all along), and those can be rather soulless exercises. Work-for-hire is when you have a contract to write something in somebody else's world, using somebody else's characters, according to a list of things you should do and can't do that is often the size of a book itself. This sort of arrangement is usual with novels built around television shows, or movies, or game franchises. Not only do you have to write according to very strict specifications, but you don't own the work, and you don't get paid very much.

This is very, very different from what Mary is talking about.

Many writers who accept work-for-hire contracts do it to increase their visibility, or just to support themselves while they work on their own projects. But I've met some writers who are very happy with this sort of arrangement. I was on a convention panel with a woman who was writing books based on a popular television show, and she was very proud of the fact that she could churn out a book on a three-or-four week deadline. When someone in the audience expressed their dismay at this idea, the writer became very defensive and said that anyone who couldn't or wouldn't work that way wasn't much of a professional.

Me, I have enough trouble meeting my own, far more generous deadlines, because I'm compulsive about rewriting and editing. So I guess by her standards I'm not a professional.