Same old boring advice

So I give workshops and have sat on a couple panels on writing, editing, and publishing. Every time, I freak out and overprepare for really challenging industry questions. And every time, every single time, I get these:

I want to write. How do I start? What should I produce that'll sell?

I am so sorry to disappoint you with the same thing you've heard over and over, but it's the only freaking answer:

Write what you love. Write the book you want to read.

You know what, forget publishing at this point. Just write and write and write, and figure out what you actually enjoy while you're doing it. I know a lot of "successful" authors at this point, and just a couple of them actually make their entire living by it. Writing cannot be first and foremost a job; that's not sustainable for most people. It's too competitive, with too little payoff. Writing has to be your daily routine, it's what makes you happy. If it pays someday, awesome, but virtually all of what you're going to get out of it (even if it sells!) is just the joy of doing it. So concentrate on doing the writing that you enjoy (the only kind you're be any good at), and maybe it'll pay later.

Pay no attention to the beginning.

The first chapter of my novel is actually a problem, it doesn't read like the rest of the book. Nothing happens, nor anything pertaining to the plot.

You really have to give us a little more information on both counts. If nothing happens, nor anything pertaining to the plot, and it doesn't read like the rest of the book, what is its purpose? Just as importantly, what will your prospective editor expect from the rest of the book? Remember that we'll stop reading at any point; the last thing I want to hear from any of yous is "Just keep going, it'll get better in the third chapter."

I think you've just decided to trash that first chapter and work its contents into the exposition. If you're really enamored of that initially different voice, try a short prologue, but make sure it's necessary.

I'm wondering if I should start in the action, or just a bit later on, and then flash back.

Where to start your story in relation to the action is another question entirely. Usually, any of several different techniques will work. It depends on what kind of action you're telling us about. What style are you going for, what are you good at, and what makes sense for the story?

Sorry for the vagueness. Pitch to the clinic, let us see!

Keep bleeding, there's blood left

Is there a point when you receive so many rejection letters as a writer that it's unrealistic to hope for a change in fortune? I've been sending short stories and poetry out for the past year and the pile of letters is beginning to topple over.

Honestly, it depends on what you're getting out of the rejections. Most (all?) successful (and by successful, I mean have ever sold anything, ever) writers have an amazing stack of rejection letters under that first manuscript that went anywhere. So one way to look at is that you've done amazing job at persevering, which is pretty special. Most people give up way before now. Seriously, good keeping at it.

The question is, what are you getting out of these rejections? Are you learning anything, and is your writing improving? Has anyone given you any real feedback, or are they all form letters?

If you've got some personal notes from editors, great. Take their advice to heart and rewrite, and work on new projects. Revision's kind of a crap shoot for us; we really don't get excited about projects that need a lot of it, as so many writers can't do it. Use editorial suggestions to inform new work instead of focusing solely on rewriting one project to death.

If your feedback's remained completely generic, it might mean it's time to really examine the quality of your writing. What does your critique group say? You do have one, right?

Also, poetry and short stories are tough to sell. Make sure you're submitting to publications that want exactly what you're doing. (Odds are overwhelming it's not going in a book.)

First Pages: #2

AZ / Inhabit

Although I really did find a way to power the rockets to take hundreds of us throughout the solar system, the only product of my entire career struggle working in so-called "rocket science," was that people wanted to hear the story.

“Entire career struggle” is confusing, but right on. I want to hear the story too.

As the "Featured Evening Speaker", again and again, they would keep me long after I was finished talking, asking me questions. What was so captivating? Was it the stories about how we can actually leave the Earth? Or was it just that I was telling them stories and entertaining them? Or was it my struggle against the real world and reality? I can't tell, so I am telling the story

You know, this is a really interesting topic, but it could be a lot more engaging. The Featured Speaker Q&A is a really great way to give your readers vicarious access to your storyteller. This technique would work a lot better as a scene than a narrative. Drop us right into that Q&A with some dialogue.

The struggle to make a Vision come alive, a kind of Exodus Path to Leave Earth, became intense, compelling, overpowering, and took on a single purpose at the moment when I first found out there was water in space. I knew immediately I could use it.

Clarify this a little more, and use it in the back story after you’ve hooked us with some speaker-audience interaction.

At the end of that career, after I "retired" and started another, I had discovered comparatively simple ways to do it:

Wait, which career ended and which started? Ease into this transition.

• to use the water objects and ice comets in neospace as gas stations,
• to use nuclear-heated steam rockets to move us,
  
• to travel the solar system,maybe to live on ice moons of the Sun System,
• maybe to use giant, ice-igloo, hollow wheels as space ships,
• to move killer asteroids and comets out of the way without atomic bombs.

Clean this list up; you’ve got some unclear concepts and you’ve mixed vague ideas with solid problem-solving.

We would inhabit, occupy, move minor planets and other celestial objects.

After all the effort, all the Visions, I got old instead of making it happen.

Love this line. Is this the focus of the story?