Embrace or change....?

[Jo Zebedee]

I think they're paying you to be you.

That’s probably very true. And, for better or worse, I have raised the profile of sf here in NI (conflicted society with no sf? Bizarre....) - it was a lost genre a few years ago with only one prominent writer (Ian McDonald, the hero), tomorrow I’m at a panel in Belfast and doing a workshop, last night I did a workshop, etc etc. We now have a genre scene, albeit small.

So, yeah - this is true. Cheers

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It's very very difficult at the beginning to have the guts to do your own thing regardless. Either you don't through lack of confidence or inexperience, or you big yourself up so much you come across as a narcissistic egomaniac. Or you try to please everybody, and please nobody. Experience changes authors' viewpoints, though. There is a lot to be said for being your own brand, but that is the least likely stroke of luck of them all, and anyway you need the benefit of hindsight to change tack.
I promote my "SF has got it all wrong" brand of AI work because I believe that to be true. It's good to read that you're doing the Belfast/Northern Ireland thing Jo, I think you're taking the right steps there. Give it time...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

It's very very difficult at the beginning to have the guts to do your own thing regardless. Either you don't through lack of confidence or inexperience, or you big yourself up so much you come across as a narcissistic egomaniac. Or you try to please everybody, and please nobody. Experience changes authors' viewpoints, though. There is a lot to be said for being your own brand, but that is the least likely stroke of luck of them all, and anyway you need the benefit of hindsight to change tack.
I promote my "SF has got it all wrong" brand of AI work because I believe that to be true. It's good to read that you're doing the Belfast/Northern Ireland thing Jo, I think you're taking the right steps there. Give it time...

Thanks, Stephen. It certainly feels like a less lonely place now I have a local community!

 

[The Big Peat]

I would add this: if you say you're "writing for the market" that gives the impression that there is either a method or style that has a better chance of being accepted by a big publisher. I don't think there is. It's just as random in the big world as in the indie world.

I might be being naive, and I feel a little hesitant disagreeing given how much more experience you've had of the matter, but I think you're overstating things.

Not to say that there isn't a great amount of chance involved in getting published by a big publisher/that actually working out for you - but looking at the books they do publish, it feels like there's a very definite mould they want (and I think that's born out from some of the rejection stories out there). I feel like that if the randomness is like trying to roll twenty dice without getting a single one, then going for the Bigs without going for something commercially friendly is like grabbing another twenty dice on top of that.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Chance is a difficult concept to get across, especially in a world of believers, and I'm sure I've not yet conveyed it quite right.
My main beef is with those who say "if you have a dream and follow it, you'll succeed". This is wish fulfilment beloved of a certain culture I won't here mention; and, imo, of zero value. Tacking on fake templates about how to write to markets makes no difference to the underlying lack of reality.
My feeling is: you can write as close to a template as you like, but the random element, even, as you say TBP, if that isn't the whole story, is so large it is the dominant factor.
At some point - and I went through this early on, luckily - a writer has to face reality. They have to face the quality of their own talent, the odds against them, and the fact that the real world works on its own rules. I emphasise these things in my posts because nobody else does. Perhaps, given how long Chrons has been a vibrant community, that now appears to many as the Palmer Cliche. But in the end all writers must face facts.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

^^ by the way, I'm perfectly happy if people do think it's the Palmer Cliche!