Reality Check: So you want to be a writer

Constructed by autopope, and turned into the wild with permission to use%.

* Age when I decided I wanted to be a writer: 4

* Age when I "wrote" my first story: 4 (by copying out "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin." Happily, my father pointed out the copyright issues.)

* Age when I got my hands on a typewriter: 14

* Age when I wrote my first novel: This is difficult. I told myself stories all the time; however, I didn't live in an environment where it was safe to commit such things to paper.

* Novels written between age 4 and age 34: 4

* Age when I first submitted a short story to a magazine: 24

* Thickness of file of rejection slips prior to first story sale: I have no idea; the rejection slips file with the story

* Age when I sold my first short story: 28

* Age when I first came close to selling a novel: 25

* Age when that first book deal imploded (prior to publication): 25

* Age when I first sold a non-fiction book: n/a

* Age when I landed a (paid, monthly) magazine column: n/a. I freelanced for a couple of local newspapers for a few years.

* Age when I next wrote a saleable novel: 32

* Age when that novel was published: 36

* Age when the second saleable novel finally sold: 35

* Age when a short story was first shortlisted for the Hugo award: LOL

* Age when the second saleable novel came out: 36

* Age when the third saleable novel came out: 37

* Age when the fourth saleable novel came out: 47

* Age when I first won a Hugo award: LOLx2

* Age when I finally shut down the day-job and became a full-time novelist: 50

* Age when the money coming in exceeded my previous employment: 51

* Age when I returned to the day-job because of publisher implosion: 55

* Age now: 56

* Number of books sold: 20 (novels), 2 (short story collections), edited anthology: 1

* Number of titles in print: 17 (one way or another)

* Number of titles fallen out of print: 1

%Consider this an LJ-meme: if you write professionally, feel free to post your own equivalent of this list. (Obviously you'll need to customize it to track your career path -- but you get the idea.)

In which tomorrow is Monday again

Well. The weatherbeans are calling rainsleetandsnow on the overnight, with accumulations up to an inch. I could be OK with them missing this one. Five inches or so of just-snow would be enough to keep me in for the work-day.

The fingerless gloves continue to delight, proving their worth again today, when my wrists were too sensitive to tolerate the weight of the cuff-buttons on my denim shirt. Roll up the sleeves, slide on the gloves and viola! Bob est votre oncle.

Progress has been made on Fledgling. Not as much progress as I wanted to make, but ain't that always the way. I have finished writing for the day and will now repair to the couch to outline future necessary action. Unless, yanno, I fall for the siren call of Evil Roy Slade, which I still have not viewed. I think Netflix came out 'way ahead this year.

In theory, there is a business meeting on the schedule tonight. We've been running so fast to get things done, that we haven't taken a good look at where we are, where we mean to go, and how to get there in some time. Which is bad. This stuff ought to be brought out onto the table every six months or so, if only so we can say, "Oh, yeah. That's what we're doing."

Solid word count Fledgling revision

91,454 / 120,000 (76.2%)