Oh well
I went to the cashpoint today and found that I am officially skint. I wouldn't mind but it's only two days after payday. Even worse, I've not been particularly extravagant. I need a boost to my income.
Given that I arrive home exhausted after a hard day's telling lies for the Government, I'm not going to be able to find another part-time job. What's left, I guess is to actually WRITE all the stories I'd planned. Unfortunately, I can barely manage two hundred words a day, so that means 73,000 words a year. It'll take me at least two years to write a book at that rate.
After that comes the selling. But of course, if I've taken two years to write the book, the ideas are probably two years old by the time I finish it. Then it'd take 13 weeks per agent to have a look at it, so that's one year per four agents (they resent it if you send the same material to more than one at the same time and there are a couple of hundred in England so it could be fifty years at the most), on top of that, publishers then take a couple of years on the publishing cycle... so if I start now, I could be 101 before I start making money.
So. To get around this problem, I guess I have to find a way to write more quickly in the hope that I get paid more quickly and can quit my job and spend more time writing.
I think I'm going to start on my MySpace page after I come from Cambridge in two weeks. (So... beginning on w/c 13 August, I'll be writing and posting. So, any thoughts about what I should write, given the object is not becoming a literary giant, but becoming obscenely rich in the shortest time possible?
Given that I arrive home exhausted after a hard day's telling lies for the Government, I'm not going to be able to find another part-time job. What's left, I guess is to actually WRITE all the stories I'd planned. Unfortunately, I can barely manage two hundred words a day, so that means 73,000 words a year. It'll take me at least two years to write a book at that rate.
After that comes the selling. But of course, if I've taken two years to write the book, the ideas are probably two years old by the time I finish it. Then it'd take 13 weeks per agent to have a look at it, so that's one year per four agents (they resent it if you send the same material to more than one at the same time and there are a couple of hundred in England so it could be fifty years at the most), on top of that, publishers then take a couple of years on the publishing cycle... so if I start now, I could be 101 before I start making money.
So. To get around this problem, I guess I have to find a way to write more quickly in the hope that I get paid more quickly and can quit my job and spend more time writing.
I think I'm going to start on my MySpace page after I come from Cambridge in two weeks. (So... beginning on w/c 13 August, I'll be writing and posting. So, any thoughts about what I should write, given the object is not becoming a literary giant, but becoming obscenely rich in the shortest time possible?
posted by ur.alcuin@googlemail.com at 1:37 PM
7 Comments:
Being ever so practical and realising that the writing route may be a long drawn out one, why not sell stuff on ebay? Then you can write about all the mysterious people and their lives who sell stuff on ebay?
I'll get me coat.
Hmm. Not entirely sure I have anything to sell (other than my labour of course - and I've already sold that to Maggie's Farm plc.
I suppose I could write a blackmail letter.
Boy wizard?...
Lyra and Dust?...
Alcuin, someone of your clear talent, knowledge and education (as observed on BBC MB!!!) shoul be able to earn more somehow (I find find myself in a similar situation due mainly to sending most of my dosh back to my ex ad kids (voluntarily...not under duress from HMG)...my brother runs a writing company and they do a lot of freelance; I'll ask what 'the set-up' is and maybe I could chuck a couple of subjects your way...i.e. you write and they pay for it...not promising anything, in fact I don't even know if they 'do' that sort of thing but I'll ask anyway.
Span, thanks, that's real kind of you and of course, I will take any help I can get. In the meantime, I just got back from a SF convention at Cambridge University where I spent time subtly pumping writers, publishers, sellers (and game designers and fans) for ideas about how to get on.
The boy wizard's time is gone, as is that of Lyra and Will, but it just so happens I bought an old copy of Black Man's Burden... maybe El-Hassan's time has come around at last.
I'm back next week, I'll speak with him and let you know/get him to contact you (do you have an e-mail address he can use?) I ask because I have one on my blog profile but you don't so I'm not sure if you want people to contact you that way etc. or not
Oh yes, sorry, it's alcuin at blueyonder dot co dot uk
...I've e-mailed
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