How Long Does It Take to Get Published?

I’ve been looking at my submission stats so far and wanted something to compare them to, so I dug around a little and came up with the experiences of these three science fiction authors (this is just based on a cursory look at their blogs--I may have understood some of the numbers incorrectly):

John Scalzi (soon-to-be-former SFWA President, 9 novels and some novellas, short stories, etc.): Started writing science fiction at age 28, contract signed for debut novel at 33, debut novel published at 35, won John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at age 37 (see full timeline here).

Jamie Todd Reuben (8 short stories): Decided to become a professional science fiction writer at age 21, first story accepted for publication at age 34, second professional story accepted at age 37, third professional story accepted at age 38.  Altogether, “14 years, 30 stories, and nearly 100 rejections before [his] first story sale (see full timeline here).

Tobias S. Buckell (50 short stories, 7 novels): No age timeline, but in an essay wrote, “my own record is 24 rejections before selling a single story,” and “I have over 650 rejections logged in my files” (see full essay here).

So, obviously, it would be kind of hard to make any specific generalizations about how long it takes to become a professional writer based on this small, nonrandom, anecdotal sample, but it does give you a soft feel for what may be typical.  Dozens to hundreds of rejections over several years or even decades….  Since I started writing in November, I guess I should plan on seeing some success around 2017.

How to Start Writing Fiction

Okay, so on the topic of beginning writers, I thought I'd devote a post to how I got started.  I'm planning on devoting some time to statistics (number of stories, number of submissions, number of journals submitted to, etc.) later, but for now this is purely anecdotal.

In November of last year (2012), I was listening to NPR on my way to work on the 4th or 5th of the month, and I heard a story about NaNoWriMo.  Totally on a whim, I decided to do it, even though I had already missed a few days, and I had never written fiction before (aside from a school project in like 4th grade).  Fortunately, I had some down time, and I figured -- why not?  So I seriously just opened up a Word document on my laptop and started writing the first thing that came to my mind, and then I kept going, writing almost every day, and I had made it to almost exactly 50,000 (a couple of words over) when I finally wrote THE END on the last day of the month.  I was proud of myself for having "won," and I was surprised at how much I had enjoyed it.

When I first decided to do NaNoWriMo, I had figured I'd get bored with it and stop writing after I finished the contest, but it never happened, so I just kept writing.  I even started thinking about ideas for stories on my drives to/from work, and I would write them down on my breaks.  I actually had a short story submitted to a magazine before I even finished NaNoWriMo.

My writing has ebbed and flowed in the six months since I submitted that first story, but my interest hasn't waned a bit.  So now the trick is getting published.  More on that later, but as obvious as it sounds, for me the trick to getting started as a writer was just a matter of starting to write.

What to Blog About -- Beginning Writers

Okay, so I started this blog as just an outlet for whatever random stuff was rattling around my brain, and I figured I'd just start with whatever came out and figure out later how to organize it (if I decided I wanted to organize it).  And so far I've enjoyed it, so I'm going to keep it up...but I'm going to try to write more about writing fiction.  For reasons similar to those that got me to start this blog, I've been writing science fiction stories for a few months now as a way to feel like I'm using my brain for something creative (at least on some level), and I've learned some things about the process of getting published.  So I'll include whatever insights I think are relevant here, while tracking my progress as a beginning writer so hopefully someone else can learn from my mistakes or maybe take my attempts and find a new way of their own to make it work.

Naturally, as a beginning writer, I'm keenly interested in other beginning writers and in what it means to be a beginning writer.  But there doesn't seem to be much (at least with regard to specifics) out there on how to get started, so hopefully this will contribute somewhat to that topic area.  So far, I've come across several professional authors who are more than willing to impart their knowledge regarding how to get started (see for example here and here), but they seem pretty dismissive of trying any way other than the way they recommend, which rubs me wrong, first since the field of writing in general has changed so much in the last few years, and second since my interests haven't really lined up with what they think.  And isn't writing supposed to be creative anyway?

It could just be that I'm a beginning writer and don't know what I'm talking about, but I like to think I'm just being open-minded.  We'll see how it works out....

Top Ten German Compound Words Used in English

I love how when Germans want to make a new word, they just add two existing words together and create an entirely new concept.  This happens in English (and I'm sure other languages) as well, but it doesn't seem to be near as common -- or as effective -- as it is in German.

Here's a list of my ten favorite German compound words (most of them are commonly used in English):

In no particular order:

1.) wunderkind (literally "wonder child," a prodigy)
2.) gegenuber (literally "against over," meaning across from)
3.) blitzkrieg (literally "lightning war")
4.) doppelganger (literally "double goer")
5.) dummkopf (literally "dumb head")
6.) rinderpest (literally "cattle plague," the name of a cattle plague)
7.) schadenfreude (literally "harm joy," happiness at someone else's misfortune)
8.) ubermensch (literally "super man")
9.) schlitterbahn (literally "water road," the name of a waterpark in Texas)
10.) wanderlust (literally "travel desire")