Thread: The Pyramid of Publishing Success

garza - You're playing semantics with your constant references to writing not being work and with the acknowledgement that effort is required. They are one and the same. If you want to insist that you enjoy writing and that therefore for you it isn’t work, you need to find some other way to express it. In my humble opinion, that is.
work
  /wɜrk/ Show Spelled [wurk] Show IPA noun, adjective, verb, worked or ( Archaic except for 35, 37, 40 ) wrought; working.
–noun
1.
exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.

effort (ˈɛfət)

— n

1.

physical or mental exertion, usually considerable when unqualified: the rock was moved with effort

Ox - A good tennis player expends a great deal of energy, 'works' in the physical sense. I know, because I played tennis one time for about 15 minutes. That was work. For the person who enjoys the game, loves the game, it's play, not work. I love to write. I love to teach writing. I love to take pictures. I love to teach people how to take pictures. I love taking part in radio and tv programmes. I love writing, photographing, and producing videos. I love setting up Web pages. All these things provide countless hours of entertainment, and, by a fortunate twist of fate, can also provide cash money to pay the rent and buy the groceries.

Since I was 14 years old I have not engaged in any professional activity that I did not love and that I did not thoroughly enjoy. Now, have I 'worked', or played, for these past 56 years?

Look at it this way Gaza, either it is all semantics and work you get paid for, play you do purely for fun, or, I have barely done a days work since I chucked in my steady job of two and a half years when I was eighteen and a half.

Sound advice, thank you for sharing.

Steve

It's all in how we personally define what we do. I don't define what I've done all my life as work, not even the chancy bits, or, perhaps, especially not the chancy bits. Of course I was a lot younger during the chancy bits of my life. I was immortal. We're all immortal when we're young. I got damaged a couple of times, but never doubted that I'd live to make it to a peaceful old age.

It's been a very, very good life. 'Work', as defined by me, has played no part in it, and now that I have achieved that peaceful old age I can look back and say I wouldn't change a minute of it, and neither would I change places with anyone.

To young people I always offer the advice given me by my grandfather. Find something you love to do that pays a decent living, do that, and you'll never have to work.

garza - if we all sought to earn the rent and groceries money that way, who’d be left to carry out the abortions and autopsies and ablution-block cleansing?

Why, the people who love to do abortions or autopsies, or who see ablution-block cleansing as entertainment, that's who.

My son likes to build things. When he was in high school he spent summers employed by a roofing contractor, kneeling on a hot roof in the blazing sun nailing down roof shingles, and loved it. Today he has his own company building houses and strip malls and such, but he still loves to get in with the crew and mix cement or plaster a wall. He's never read a book for pleasure, but has hundreds of books on construction, building codes, and such.

He's never had to work for a living.

I like your advice, Backward Ox. I write short fiction and I was working at lower and lower acceptance ratios. This pyramid makes sense (duh!). Who is Mike C...?

What's the benefit of sitting and making lists when you should be writing? The bottom rung of the ladder is right in your home town. Almost anyone can get a foot in with local media.

I know a fellow who went to work at a local tv station as a janitor while he was in high school. He learned all he could, was moved up to cameraman, and has now retired after a successful career as a producer of documentaries which he wrote and directed.

Goal setting is another of those failed concepts we hear a lot about when we are young. 'Keep your eye on the prize' is a good slogan, but paying attention to getting your foot on the next rung up the ladder is the way you'll reach the top.

Originally Posted by garza

What's the benefit of sitting and making lists when you should be writing?

A boxer does not become a boxer by hitting a heavy bag or sparring all the time. There is a certain amount of "making a plan" that goes into it.

Originally Posted by garza

The bottom rung of the ladder is right in your home town. Almost anyone can get a foot in with local media. I know a fellow who went to work at a local tv station as a janitor while he was in high school. He learned all he could, was moved up to cameraman, and has now retired after a successful career as a producer of documentaries which he wrote and directed.

I'm not beginning my professional life. I did that. I'm sixteen years younger than you. What I can do -on my own schedule, not someone else's - is that I can write. I've written lots of marketing materials, for on-line newspapers and lots of content for my own web site and newsletters and sold those newsletters. I don't want to be a writer. I want to be a writer of creative fiction. That is different from what I've done in the past.

Originally Posted by garza

Goal setting is another of those failed concepts we hear a lot about when we are young. 'Keep your eye on the prize' is a good slogan, but paying attention to getting your foot on the next rung up the ladder is the way you'll reach the top.

I've written about thirty short stories and a novel. I'm getting published in non-paying markets. I'm looking to get published on the next rung up the ladder. That's why I like the pyramid. It helps to figure out where the "next rung" is located.

That's advice I offer young people because it's what worked for me, and I've seen it work for a lot of other people.

Like you I've decided I want to learn to write fiction, which is why I'm here. At my age whether any is ever published is beside the point. Taxiday is older than I am though, and apparently is launched on a new fiction writing career. I'm just interested in adding fiction writing as one more craft I know. Getting a story published would be a nice extra.

We're working on the same thing. Among other reasons, that's why that won't work for me. I want to change - and publish fiction.

My back-up plan will be a web site. That's why the avatar is what it is.

That last story, One Soldier's Reason, is actually the last to get accepted, but the first to appear (since last summer). Untied Shoelaces of the Mind is a "semi-pro" market. Faceless is coming out soon in Short-Story.me for a "token" fee. Androids in the Garden is non-paid and comes out probably on November 1. Finally, Beauty Wears a Gun is also non-paid and comes out soon in Golden Visions. All are ezines. All appear in the next couple of months.

I need to work my way up the pyramid until I am publishing in Professional Markets. That's my goal.

I checked out your website and read One Soldier's Reason. Good read.

He reminds me of a friend of mine, a radio engineer who went back to Vietnam as many times as they'd let him. As a kid he was good natured, happy, completely obsessed from about the age of ten with electronics. He was drafted, sent to a remote special forces training camp, then to Viet Nam. He came back and the Army sent him to another remote special forces camp and back to Viet Nam. I'm not sure, but I think he spent six years over there, if that's possible. (reporters didn't have a time limit - stay as long as you like or until you have some significant part of your body shot off)

The last time I saw him we met at a coffee shop in Biloxi. He showed me the inside of his van. There was a 16 gauge pump shotgun with the plug out and loaded with five Brenneke slugs in a ready-clip inside the driver's door. An AK-47 was in a sort of saddle holster by the right side of the driver's seat. A nine mm S&W was in another holster attached to the centre-front of the driver's seat, just below knee level. He carried a little .32 in his back pocket and a .38 Chief's Special and a spool of black thread in the glove box. He showed me two pieces of one-inch pvc about eight inches long and capped at each end with a thread hanging out of a hole in one end and taped to the pipe. He assured me that each contained four ounces of C-4. That's when I figured out what the thread was for.

We sat in the coffee shop, laughed and joked, traded war stories, talked about radio, and he was perfectly fine until one of the local Vietnamese fishermen walked in. My friend froze. So much blood drained out of his face I was afraid he would faint. I've never seen anyone turn that pale that quickly. He very carefully put his cup on the table and started to shake and sweat. He sat and stared at the fisherman for about ten seconds, then said 'let's get out of here', and practically ran for the door. I've not seen him since, but I hope he got help.

Thank you for reading One Soldier's Reason. I really do thank you. Please tell others. I hope the story helps former soldiers, and I hope it helps civilians understand former soldiers. Lots of people run toward weapons and others run away from them. The reasons they do each one, I don't completely understand.

A civilian is what I've always been. I tried to join the Navy. They said I was too nearsighted. The Army said the same thing. Even the Air Force wouldn't take me and that sort of hurt my feelings. I had to arrange for my own transport - going to New Orleans and signing on as wiper on a tramp. I still have my seaman's document. It's expired, but I still carry it. And I'm still armed the way I was then - notebook, pencil, and camera.

The more of your stories that are published in such places as 'Shoelaces' the better your chance of being picked up by a major publishing house. You will do yourself a favour if you find a good agent along the way. Writers know about writing, agents know about publishing.