My career, Harper's Index style

[truepenny]

Meme from matociquala.

Current Status as of this morning:

Cormorant Child: stuck for lack of a sfnal macguffin to discover in Chapter 2
Dark Sister: ideas breeding like bunnies, but no effing PLOT
The Emperor of the Elflands: waiting to hear whether my editor is interested
The Marriage of True Minds: stuck
The Second Son: stuck in the Slough of Despond

"After the Dragon": stuck
"Blue Lace Agate": in chrysalis, metamorphosing (I hope) from short story to novel(la)
"Brides of Nyarlathotep": stuck
"Hollywood After Dark: A Still Life With Wolves": stuck stuck stuck
"The Queen in Winter": stuck
"The Queen of Liverpool": broken
"Thirdhop Scarp": can't decide which story it wants to be
"Under Babylon": stuck
"White Charles": avoiding
untitled electric chair story: composting

Age when I decided I wanted to be a writer: 11
Age when I wrote my first story: 11
Age when I first submitted a short story to a magazine: 15
Age when I sold my first short story: 27
Number of years in-between in which I made no submissions: 9
Thickness of file of rejection slips prior to first story sale: 50, maybe?
Approximate number of short stories/novelettes/novellas sold for cash money: 31

Age when I first sold a poem: 30
Poems sold: 1

Age when I wrote my first novel, counting by what I, at the time, defined as a "novel": 12
Age when I sold a first novel: 28
Novels written between age 12 and age 28: 7
Age when I wrote the first novel I sold: 27 (but I started it when I was 19)
Age when that novel was published: 30
Total number of novels written (discounting juvenilia, counting collaborations): 5
Books sold: 6 (5 novels, 1 collection)
Books published or delivered and in the pipeline: 6
Number of titles in print: 5
Number of titles fallen out of print: 0

Age when first nominated for an award: 28
Age when first won an award: 28
Nominations: 5
Awards won: 1

Age when I became a full-time novelist: 29
Age when I returned to the day-job because of economic implosion: n/a, although I have taught two semesters of college literature between then and now
Age now: 34

Comments

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Total number of novels written (discounting juvenilia, counting collaborations): 5

*dies* I accidentally read that as "counting abominations" ... which describes some of my own unpublished novels rather well! But, er, not yours.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, I dunno. I'd classify my juvenilia as abominable.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

With that many Stuck Things, it sounds as if you need someone to turn you upside down and shake real hard.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no kidding.

I am relearning something I already knew, which is that I'm fantastic at starting things and very very very bad at finishing them. For a while there, I seem to have had the problem licked, but it's come creeping insidiously back.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Whew, I hear you. I haven't even yet found a plan for me that makes a story >15,000 words seem as if it could possibly remain interesting to the Writing Lizard in My Head.

Writing is hard, yo. And yet so good. Like cashew brittle.

[shoshanaruth.livejournal.com]

Wow. I really like your lists there. Thank you for posting.

[(Anonymous)]

Can't wait to see what happens with the untitled electric chair story! And speaking of novels...I hope it's not verboten, but is there any chance that you'll be posting the first few chapters of Corambis like you have in the past? We're starvin' 'ere!!

[orrin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the list. I have now begun to say that I found it encouraging several times, but each time I stopped because I seemed to be saying it wrong somehow. So: I found it encouraging! Thanks!