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

[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.