Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
So did Doc finish the book and return it at the checkout desk?  It does have
three stories about dogs in it, which isn't too bad a ratio for a collection
of 17 stories.
  

    

No, Doc still has not coughed it up.  I am searching, searching.  If I
cannot find it by Monday, I shall quick as a bunny get another.
  

    
I hope you can get another one quick as a bunny!
  

    
I just want to say that there was an Alfa Romeo convertible parked around
the corner today, and its license plate number was NJULIET.
  

    

do we like that?  I kinda like that, although I am against vanity plates.
  

    

I once read on the Well about the sighting in San Francisco of a Honda 
Civic del Sol with license plates DEL FOG.
  

    
I like vanity plates when they make me laugh.
  

    

problem is, they only make me laugh once.
  

    
I only see most license plates once.
  

    
Joe Haldeman suggests the Alfa Romeo driver has another, identical car, and
its license plate reads NBETA.

C'mon, ask me something.
  

    

What do you look like?  What's your favorite color?  What's your work
schedule?  Are you married?  Single?  Don't know?  Do you have any vices?
What kind of clothing do you favor?  Do you color your hair?  Do you define
yourself by your work?  Who are your greatest influences?  Where do you like
to hang out on the Well?  How's your book doing?  Tell us about your other
Books.
  

    

Why in the world do you write fiction (given that it can be hard work and 
pays almost nothing)?
  

    
How about working style? Word processor or pencil and paper? Several
revisions or fully formed at first attempt? Rigid schedule or when the muse
strikes?
  

    
What's the most annoying question interviewers... not *here* but cluesless
interviewers *elsewhere*...  tend to ask?
  

    
Whew, that's a lot of questions.

When I was a kid, my favorite color was brown, but I don't know that I have
one now.

Am I married or single?  That's a complicated question.  I am best friends
with the swellest person on earth and we're not divorced.

I'm a t-shirt and jeans sort of person, though for special occasions I've
been known to wear things that go up to here and down to there.

I highlight my hair a little sometimes.

I don't know how I define myself.  If I defined myself by my work, I'd be
pretty depressed, and sometimes I do.

Influences is a long post.

I hang out in a lot of Well conferences: Words, Current, Media, Genx,
Obsess.ind, Slicker.ind, Owl, Sanfran, Books, Music, Newmusic.ind, Movies,
and other ones I'm forgetting.

I don't know how my book's doing.  It does better every time someone buys a
copy.

I don't know why I write fiction.  That would be another whole post.

My working style is nothing to brag about.

I'll elaborate where desired--
  

    
Long posts where indicated would be lovely.
  

    

Yes, please expand when you have the time.
  

    
I have no long-term memory, which forces me to be a short-fiction writer.
Let me know what you want expanded on, and if it comes roughly one at a time
I won't have to whine for you to repeat it.
  

    

Okay, you have to write short fiction, because you have no long-term 
memory. But why write fiction? What does it give you? 
  

    

Jennifer, I find that an odd question!  Perhaps I'm being sensitive on
(soukup)'s behalf, but that, coupled with the previous statement of fiction
paying nothing, seems, well...vaguely denigrating.  You can't possibly mean
it this way, I am sure.

To me it is the greatest privilege in the world to write books and have
people print them up and offer them for sale.  And fiction, because it is so
hard, is the greatest privilege of all.
  

    

I do not mean my question to be denigrating, and I hope Martha doesn't
take it that way. I am both surprised and happy that anyone writes
fiction, given how underappreciated and poorly paid such work is. Not to
mention that it can be personally draining. I've talked with a lot of
writers about why they write fiction in spite of the difficulties of that
profession, and the reasons often go to the very soul of a person. I'd
love to hear more about Martha's soul, that's all. 
  

    
Please don't be sensitive on my behalf, or otherwise do be, because I think
it's a perfectly reasonable question so I can't be sensitive about it
myself.

I mean, it's a crazy thing to do.  Go to New York and walk into the Strand
used-book store, where writers who were once well-enough known and published
a dozen books are swallowed up and lost and forgotten until once a year
someone comes in who notices a dusty old book and remembers them.

And then I write short stories!  So when someone does manage to stumble
across one, and is good enough to ask, "Where can I read more?", my answer
has been, "Um, I could make you some printouts," because they weren't going
to find the dozens of old magazines and anthologies the stories were printed
in two years ago--or two months.

As for fiction paying nothing, didn't I say that first?  I was reading along
in the Salon topic where people were talking about how you had to work for
them for love to take whatever it was, $500 for an essay, and I thought--
wow!  At five cents a word (not an unusual short-fiction rate), I'd need to
turn out a 10,000 word novelette for that!

So you don't do it for the money.  Don't even write novels for the money: a
few novelists hit the jackpot, but with the decline of the midlist, it's
hard, unless you hit that jackpot, to make even a poverty-level living wage
writing a novel a year.  You can easily make $5000 for a novel.  You can
easily make less.  And if you don't hit the jackpot, you may not be given
many chances even to make the little money.

So: hardly any money, small audience.

I guess I want to say something.  Even if it's only to the room.

I guess.
  

    
I work in fiction, too, as an editor, and although I've been on the Well for
years I still find it striking to listen to the many journalists and
technical writers here complain about what they think are low rates.  Ha ha,
I laugh in a dark way that is not really a laugh, ha ha.
  

    

so Martha, you're married to your best friend but not married?
  

    
        Is it true that you used to work in bookstores? Is it necessary
for a writer to work in bookstores at some point? Is it harmful?