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A couple of days ago I started a Top Ten list of signs that you are an actual published author. Then I ran over my word limit. I considered cutting it down to a Top Five, but I was having too much fun. So, as promised, here are the Top Five signs you are an actual published author.
5. People (other than your mother) have read your book.
4. People stop asking (however briefly) when you’re going to give up that whole writing thing and get a real job.
3. You get to work with two of the best editors in the business! Thanks, Zoe and Sarah!
2. You are invited to speak at writers’ festivals. This is an enormous amount of fun. Plus, you get to meet people who have read your book – so cool!
1. People ask you when your next book is coming out. Come on, people, it’s only been a week! But to answer your question – Beast Child will be out NEXT September. If you can’t wait any longer, head over to my website for a sneak peek! www.benchandler.com.au
Well, that’s it from me over here. Thanks for a great week of bloggage. Blogging? Bloganating? Anyway, whatever you call it, I’ve had a blast!
I will never forget the first real sentence I ever wrote as a writer. I was sixteen. I had finished school. I had deferred my university degree (Computer Science – ostensibly following in my father’s footsteps, though what I really wanted was to make video games). And I was bored. I’d read everything on my parents’ bookshelf, I’d beaten all of my games, I was getting sick of daytime television, and I didn’t have a job. The choice before me was clear: I could either walk down to the library or write my own book. How hard could it be, right?
I started out doing everything wrong. No plan. I built my world on the fly. I changed perspectives like an out of work teenager flicks through television channels. I dug plot holes and dutifully threw canvas over them and covered them with leaves. At one point someone ‘in the know’ suggested I trim the number of P.O.V.’s down from forty-five. To two. I was devastated, but I kept going. I enrolled in a BA, majoring in English (no Creative writing degrees at the time). I learned. I chipped away at that MS for years until it was finished.
Finally, a little over five years later, I was ready. I abandoned it and started again. Quillblade is my second novel, but I’ll never forget my first MS, languishing in the digital equivalent of my bottom drawer, begun all those years ago on the day I decided to become a writer.
Marge Simpson once asked if you wrote a book would they tell you if it came out. I’ve already written this week about how unbelievable it is that my first novel has finally, actually been published. I still do a double-take when I see it on the shelf in a bookstore. To help come to grips with my descent into surrealism, I’ve decided to compile a Top Ten list of signs that you are an actual published author. Lists are great. They set things out nicely and compiling them makes you feel like you’re actually working. Well, here we go!
10. You have signed a contract you don’t really understand. Sure, paperwork is a bit boring but still symbolically cool. Also, agents rock. Thanks, Nan!
9. When people ask you what you do and you tell them you’re a writer there’s no longer an awkward pause when they follow this up by asking you what you’ve had published.
8. All those pages you wrote are collected up and bound and have an actual cover designed by a truly talented artist. Thanks, Sammy! www.sammyyuen.com
7. People ask you for an autograph. Trust me people, I don’t mind. I think it’s awesome!
6. They tell you it’s out! Believe it or not, your publisher will be in touch with you when your book comes out. Many even prefer to touch base beforehand.
Check out Part 2 and the Top Five signs you’re a published author later this week!
Some writers will tell you a book begins with an idea. A concept. A memory. A random occurrence. In the realm of Speculative Fiction, they’ll tell you it all comes down to the big question: ‘What if?’ Part of the concept for Quillblade came from the questions: ‘What if there were spaceships that couldn’t leave Earth?’ and ‘What if you put a bunch of different sorts of heroes from all over the world into a confined space?’
In trying to answer those questions, others arose. How do airships fly? Why were they built? And the answers to these questions bred more. What are the Wastelands? Where do they come from? Can anything be done about them? This is how I build worlds. Piece by piece. Question by question. Often, I’m working backwards. If I want something to be like this now, it has to have come from back then. History needs to be written, both what actually happened and what the characters think happened.
I stumble over my own assumptions. The real world bleeds into the fantasy. There are limits. Boundaries. The ‘what ifs’ give way to the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’. And I haven’t even begun the most essential part of the whole thing yet. The story. I wonder what would happen if there were these two siblings—twins—and they found themselves onboard the Hiryū . . .
Well. Here we are. Quillblade has landed in stores! It’s still hard to believe, even though it’s getting less and less likely that my wonderful publisher Zoe W and her equally fantastic sidekick Sarah H (my editor), are going to jump out and yell ‘Surprise! It was all a joke!’ before pulling all of the ‘fake’ copies of Quillblade off the shelf and hurling them at me. I still have nightmares about picking up a copy and opening it to reveal that underneath Sammy Yuen’s amazing cover design is actually just a bunch of blank pages.
[Editor’s note: your copy of Quillblade should not be full of blank pages. This is just the author’s delusion. Also, the editing team would never throw books at anyone. We love books too much to see them harmed.]
And what a week to be launched! I got to appear at both Melbourne Writers’ Festival AND Aussiecon 4 in the same week Quillblade hit the shelves. If anything, this is further proof that I’m actually dreaming. Please don’t wake me up. Unless you’ve brought coffee. For a more detailed account of my time in Melbourne head on over to my website: www.benchandler.com.au ! I promise to update my blog over there soon. If I haven’t already. Once I’ve finished updating this blog. Promise.
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