To appease

I spend a lot of time thinking about why I'm not yet published. This probably isn't a very good use of my time, overall, as the answer probably lies in a failure to adhere to Heinlein's rules for writing, specifically, I'm not writing enough.

This often boils down to a conflict between writing stories that are true to me, and writing stories that are commercially viable, or as some people might say, “should I sell out on my artistic integrity just to make a sale?” Honestly, I believe there's enough room within my integrity to write stories that publishers will buy. Sometimes this leads to extended discussions on what to put in a cover letter. Frequently, it results in me driving myself insane trying to decide the best way to write a particular story -- decisions that should be simple (such as what point of view I should use) become mired down in unresolvable attempts to guess what an editor will like best.

Nick Mamatas, editor of ClarkesWorld Magazine is pretty public about his opinions, and I had the pleasure of critiquing Erica Satifka's Automatic prior to Nick seeing it (she changed it some -- I think she even used some of my suggestions!)

So I'm writing a story specifically for ClarkesWorld. It's a test to see if I can write to the demands of another. We'll see what Nick thinks of it when it's finished.

This is another worry that I waste time thinking about: if I were to get a contract for, say, a Star Trek novelization, could I write it? Am I capable of picking up on someone else's world and writing to their rules? I don't know.

A related and more relevant question is can I write for a particular market/editor? Part of the problem is that it's difficult to understand what editors want, with a few exceptions. Most editors are too busy to reply with personalized rejections, so (as a writer) I have no idea why my story is not acceptable to them.

It got me thinking that I know what my critiquing group wants to see (at least I should after being active in the group for 18 months), so I have another project to test my ability: write a story acceptable to my critiquing group. Hopefully, their opinions will be similar to those of an editor.

On a side note, one of the members of the group is Pete Butler, editor of Triangulation: End of Time, so I'm getting a pretty good idea of what he wants. So I guess I do know what a few editors want.