Ask the Author: K.H. Vaughan
Answered Questions (4)
K.H. Vaughan
I'm really interested in geopolitics and what the world will look like in the near-future, so the book in progress is about those issues. But the starting point was an experiment in first-person limited omniscient perspective.
K.H. Vaughan
Just do it, but know that you are going to suck at first, and you probably won't make any money. You wouldn't expect to pick up a guitar and play like Prince. We've all been writing stuff down since we were kids, and so a lot of people expect that their fiction is going to be good right away and that's generally not true. It's different writing. You have to be prepared for that. You are going to make a lot of the mistakes we all do. You have to get it out of your system before you can do better.
Decide why you are writing. If it's about money, get ready for disappointment. If it's about acceptance and admiration from strangers, that's tough to come by. We're all shouting into the void a lot of the time. Is it about finding your tribe? That's doable, and you can be part of the writing tribe without pretending your a writer or conforming to the stereotypes about struggling artists. It's o.k. to be a fan and a hobbyist.
The best reason to write is because you want to. You like telling stories, and want people to enjoy them.
Learn the craft. read broadly and fill your head with ideas and experiences. Go to museums. Watch people. You can't be a good writer by just repeating the tropes you see on television.
Learn about the industry. There are rules and expectations for how to conduct yourself and they apply to you. There are also a lot of predators and crappy practices out there. People get so excited that someone wants to publish their work that they sign really bad contracts or with bad publishers. Check the SFWA model contract. Research publishers before you sign. Get a community of people who will give you good advice, not just tell you what you want to hear.
Decide why you are writing. If it's about money, get ready for disappointment. If it's about acceptance and admiration from strangers, that's tough to come by. We're all shouting into the void a lot of the time. Is it about finding your tribe? That's doable, and you can be part of the writing tribe without pretending your a writer or conforming to the stereotypes about struggling artists. It's o.k. to be a fan and a hobbyist.
The best reason to write is because you want to. You like telling stories, and want people to enjoy them.
Learn the craft. read broadly and fill your head with ideas and experiences. Go to museums. Watch people. You can't be a good writer by just repeating the tropes you see on television.
Learn about the industry. There are rules and expectations for how to conduct yourself and they apply to you. There are also a lot of predators and crappy practices out there. People get so excited that someone wants to publish their work that they sign really bad contracts or with bad publishers. Check the SFWA model contract. Research publishers before you sign. Get a community of people who will give you good advice, not just tell you what you want to hear.
K.H. Vaughan
I honestly don't worry about it. Since I don't write full-time I don't have to worry about hitting deadlines to pay my rent. I also don't get it often. If I'm not writing it's because I'm extremely busy other aspects of my life. Work, kids, and "adulting" are requiring a lot of me and there's only so much to go around. When those demands recede, I write automatically. So, if I'm not writing and I want to be, it means I need to figure out how to manage the other aspects of my life better. Eat right, get enough sleep, reduce stress.
I will add that it is hard for me to write fiction while I'm teaching. Stephen King talks about this in "On Writing." When he was doing manual labor his mind was free to wander and he was productive as a writer. When hewas teaching it was harder. On teaching days I spend most of the day reading, thinking about, writing, and talking about non-fiction topics. If I lecture for four hours that content is echoing through my brain for a long time after I get home. It's very hard to switch gears.
One thing I do see a lot of when it comes to "writer's block" is resistance to the process. If you find that you have lots of ideas and false starts, but trouble finishing and submitting, read this: http://www.khvaughan.com/writing-psyc...
I will add that it is hard for me to write fiction while I'm teaching. Stephen King talks about this in "On Writing." When he was doing manual labor his mind was free to wander and he was productive as a writer. When hewas teaching it was harder. On teaching days I spend most of the day reading, thinking about, writing, and talking about non-fiction topics. If I lecture for four hours that content is echoing through my brain for a long time after I get home. It's very hard to switch gears.
One thing I do see a lot of when it comes to "writer's block" is resistance to the process. If you find that you have lots of ideas and false starts, but trouble finishing and submitting, read this: http://www.khvaughan.com/writing-psyc...
K.H. Vaughan
I'm a research nut. Writing takes my instinct to explore ideas in new and unpredictable directions. I love the thrill of reading something that I've done and thinking "damn, that's actually pretty good," at least when that happens. Beyond that (and note that I naturally work from the internal to the external) I have made some great friends in the writing community. Most of us don't make a lot of money in this business, but I am increasingly rich in friends and experiences. Yeah, that sounds a little hokey, but it's true.
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