Still waiting for someone (hopefully the NY Times) to publish my rambling, apocalyptic manifesto.
My indexes have been published by many different presses and publishers, but I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for. As far as actual writing goes, just some letters to the editor of various newspapers over the years. And I won a local writing contest last year that resulted in my essay being published in a little vanity press book thing, but that doesn’t really count either. So nowhere really.
Nothing recently.
SDSU Daily Aztec
FWHC Newsletter
La Prensa
La Voz
Aztlan Journal
Reporter for Sentinel Alaska
I built a Commodore 64 emulator out of vacuum tubes to stay analog.
It was a boring utility that I am sure no one remembers or used much. I won’t be more specific than that to preserve my anonymity. At the time, it was pretty exciting to be published because it was the first program I ever wrote in 6502 assembler.
My next program was a Space Invaders clone written in assembler which I also submitted to Compute. They sent me the nicest, personalized rejection letter imaginable praising me for the quality of the program but pointing out that everyone already had Space Invaders. This was certainly a good point. I wrote it for the challenge, not because I cared about playing Space Invaders.
For my next and last game, I attempted to be a little more original and started working on a maze shooting game inspired by an obscure arcade game called Targ. However, at 17, I met my first girlfriend and discovered there were other activities of interest other than programming. I never finished the game and soon went off to college.
So my lifetime publication average stands at 1 out of 2 attempts which is a decent batting average.
I wrote an update every few months about the club I belonged to for the magazine that was sent to all the members of my sport association. Not nearly as impressive as others here, but I still consider myself to be a ‘published author’.
Well, I’m not sure that’s true, Xap. You know I have nothing but respect for you, your writing and your professional achievements, right? But it’s certainly possible to get into writing for purely professional reasons.
I started in writing because I wanted to be a Publisher. I wanted the big title with the office and so forth. I figured if I wanted that I needed to do it ALL on the way up the ladder. So I did some marketing and circulation (where I started), sold some advertising and ran a team that did that, and volunteered for some small writing projects when needed. Turned out I was good at it and people would pay me for it. But it was nothing I ever felt compelled to do, frankly.
Nowadays I’m busy and take freelance writing assignments when they’re offered but rarely seek them out. Last year, for example, I had a monthly tech column in GCN because the editor called and asked if I would. Nothing more complicated than a phone call. I actually have a few areas of writing where my employer has carved out a ‘no fly’ zone…there are topics I’m not allowed to write on or even comment on in stories on other subjects. But we’re all good with that and it’s spelled out in my contract.
I might be more tempted to agree with you on creative writing, stories, novels and so forth. I admit that the two webcomics I’m writing require me to timeblock out when I sit down to write them. It takes discipline to get those episodes off to the artist and see them through. It’s more difficult than any other assignment I’ve had or given myself.
Penthouse Forum counts, right?
There is some overlap of categories here. As well as publishing the more conventional, unpaid sort of peer reviewed academic articles (both print and online, open access stuff), I have been paid for certain academic articles (encyclopedia entries), and at least one of those is sold in both print and online versions.
I have also had one article translated into Danish and published, but that has never been published in the original English (except for an early, self published draft, on the web), so I did not count it as a reprinting. I don’t speak a word of Danish myself.
All, or nearly all (I am not sure about the Danish one) of my academic articles have been cited by at least one person apart from me, and one in particular has been widely cited across a wide range of disciplines, ranging from neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and analytical philosophy, to linguistics, design theory, educational theory, Buddhist philosophy, and literary criticism. I am rather proud of that. (There is also a guy, who works in what seems to be the interface of semiotics and informal logic, who has cited it several times, but I can’t make head nor tail of what he is talking about or why he seems to like my work.)
Might be. What kind of underwear are you wearing right now?
Is that a quote from one of those skin mags?
I’ve worked as a newspaper reporter and in marketing/communications, so I’ve been published in the small-town paper I used to work for and in several organizations’ newsletters, magazines, blogs, websites, brochures, etc.
Oh, I agree with what you say, although I would note to others that you’ve taken a different approach. My point is that trying to be a pure freelancer on work you care about will wrench out your heart. I’ve done lots of other things to support my writing over the years, as most others in this thread have, some within the greater umbrella of writing and some not. I love the wonderful process of finding the words to fill a blank page and even the stuff that others might find boring were almost always fascinating at the time. You learn something new even on a purely walk in/walk out assignment. But that’s very different from being a Writer with the capital W that is what most outsiders see when they think of the profession. A handful of people fulfill that dream. All of us here seem to be living the real reality of writing, as wildly divergent as those realities as. I can’t imagine being anything else. If that’s you then dive right you, but with your eyes wide open because it’s not going to be like that dream. That’s all I’m trying to say. Doesn’t mean that every word you do write isn’t a terrific accomplishment.
Oh, I concur. I know writers for whom it is a passion. Each word being examined and bled over and they seem to suffer so that it hurts me to watch them sometimes. But they seem compelled.
On the other hand I know a LOT of people who, as Larry Niven once put it, what to have WRITTEN more than they want to write. They want to call themselves writers and fiddle about without ever actually going through the effort to set words on paper. That’s the sort of person who will tell you all about the great novel he’s writing but will never show you his work because it’s ‘not ready’.
I taught newswriting for several years at a local community college (again I didn’t seek it out…they just asked). One of the things I had those students get used to early was looking over each others work. The best friend any writer has is a second, third and fourth set of eyes. A writer shouldn’t think of editing and criticism as ego-damaging. It’s people trying to improve your game. One can never stop learning and improving in writing.
In the end, though, for the sort of writing I do there is never a real chance for perfection. Deadlines make for quick and dirty often. You do the best you can and you can’t wait for ‘inspiration’ when an editor needs 20 column inches by 4PM. You end up sacrificing art and such for the ability to get the pub out of the door. In short, when it’s time to write you WRITE whether or not you know what you’re going to say when you start.
And you’re certainly right, Xap, that my path to becoming a writer was atypical. But it was part of a deliberate process towards a specific goal. It could have just as easily been that I wrote a few articles and decided that I’d done enough to have a feel for the task and set it aside from that point on. That’s not how fate had it but it certainly could have been that way.
Writing has been my main hobby for the last decade or so. I’ve bee published in a few dozen magazines. My first book (co-authored with a fellow doper!) will be out this summer with a respectable publisher. I’m very proud of that accomplishment. The hardest part of writing for me has not been the actual writing process. It has been finding the guts to hit submit. Editors are usually quite admirable people but they are often rushed and blunt people. I’m very pleased that I can periodically find the guts to ask for their consideration.
Hey, congratulations, LavenderBlue!
I’m not talking about them. I mean people who can write, who are published, who work hard at it, and don’t get the rewards they deserve. I can think of zillions of people in science fiction, e.g., not just the legendary cases but people I know personally. The hard sf writer with great reviews and acclaim for early novels but who never busted out of midlist and eventually left the field. A brilliant short story writer who never got traction for any novels and should be five times as famous. A literary writer of oddball novels that a few people loved and sold for squat. You won’t be able to guess their names because there are so many people who fit these descriptions.
This is all off-topic for this thread, though. It was just a side comment and I didn’t mean to make a big thing of it.
Thank you. In some ways the coolest part of the entire process was when my eldest child told me she was proud of me. I love the Dope. I know people have found a spouse here. I wonder if I’m the only person who ever found a co-author?
Nor I, Xap. But it’s definitely worth acknowledging the different types of ‘writing’ and ‘being published’. The difference between what I did and what someone with the passion does is very different. I think it comes out, as I mentioned upthread, in the problem I have with the webcomics I write. That’s still a chore as I find voices for the characters. But paid work that someone commissions? That’s something I never have an issue with. But, as you mentioned, my hearts never in it. In another field they could be paying me to dig a ditch or whatever. They ask, they pay, I do.
I work as a writer/editor. I don’t enjoy writing, but it’s something people pay me money to do, so I do it. I much prefer editing and when I’ve got my choice of gigs, that’s what I do. I’m freelancing these days, so pretty much taking anything that comes along – the mix has been about 50/50 since the first of the year.
I’ve had things published elsewhere, but the most amusing publication “credit” I have is an article from the Western New York Catholic…because somebody took it and published it under someone else’s name. Can’t you go to Hell for that?