Last semester in one of my English classes, a discussion about a short story in an anthology brought an interesting comment from a fellow student.

He didn't care for that short story. He claimed that the story lacked a lot of action. This led him to announce that being an editor and putting together anthologies was easy.

I inwardly groaned and rolled my eyes, thinking he couldn't possibly believe that being an editor, publisher, or writer for that matter, was a simple task.

This experience stayed with me when I considered how there seemed to be so many people who wanted to be writers, but were blatantly ignorant, whether they meant to be or not, of the time and effort necessary to get anything published.

I recently had an opportunity to discuss this matter with Kate Elliot, a science fiction and fantasy writer.

First of all, the student new to the art of writing should understand that stories don't get published right away.

"My first published work was a novel. It was actually the sixth novel I wrote." That novel is "The Labyrinth Gate," published under Elliot's real name, Alis A. Rasmussen, in 1988.

In high school, Elliot wrote a lot of poetry, but never attempted to publish it. With it she was able to express herself and "explore how poetry worked."

Likewise, Elliot wrote short stories in high school and college as a means of learning the writing process. She never had an "affinity" for the short story form, however. As a professional writer, Elliot publishes short stories only when asked to contribute to an anthology. She states that, "I may have seven short fiction publication credits-- about half as many as novels."

Elliot wrote her first novel in high school, but she did not try to get it published. Her second novel was written in college, and the third and fourth the year after her college graduation. Two of the latter three were repeatedly rejected by publishers, and she turned thirty the year her first novel was published. That amounts to about seven or eight years in between her first attempt to get a work published and when she finally had something published!

So those aspiring writers who think that they'll write one novel, get it accepted by the first publisher they send it to and shoot straight to the top of the best seller's list, think again.

"My early books were rejected because they weren't very good," Elliot confesses. The novel Elliot wrote a year after college went through a total of eight drafts, seven before getting accepted by DAW books. In 1992, it was published under the title "Jaran," under the pen name Kate Elliot, recently reprinted for its 10th anniversary. In between those drafts, Elliot wrote four other novels. Sometimes even writers have to multitask.

Writing science fiction and fantasy isn't always a lucrative business. Some professional writers are able to do just that; it is their job and their career. Others simply don't make enough money, so they have a "day job" and write on their free time. Elliot says that over the years, she hasn't had any interesting jobs. Her chosen career as a writer started one day in 1986, when she quit her job as "office coordinator" at Keyboard Magazine. "I never looked back."

However, just because Elliot writes full-time, that doesn't mean she's a millionaire. Elliot explains that standard royalty rates are 6-10 percent for paperbacks, and 10-15 percent for hardback novels. This means that a writer receives approximately $.56 for a $7 paperback novel sold, and about $3 for a $25 hardback.

Beware if you aren't on the bestseller list, though. Sci-fi or fantasy writers who aren't on that precious list usually sell 20,000-30,000 copies of a "midlist" paperback novel, more or less. Hardcover novels sell perhaps as few as 2,000 copies. If you're as lucky as Robert Jordan, another well known fantasy writer, 100,000 copies could be sold. Of course, Elliot points out, those are the extremes; many writers are between those two numbers.

Writing full-time is a career, remember? Elliot spends between four to eight hours a day working on her novels. Not all of that time is writing. A lot of it involves doing research, answering correspondences, "office work... procrastinating, thinking, and so on."

Novels don't take the same amount of time to write, either. Jaran took a total of ten years between the first and final drafts. Her latest novel, The Gathering Storm, took a little more than two years to write. On the other end of the spectrum, however, is The Sword of Heaven, a 1400-page novel that had to be split into two books, but only required ten months to write. Elliot admits that the reason behind the swift pace of writing what she calls her "Mozart" is due to the previous ten years of just thinking about it, and planning it. "It was more like taking dictation" when she finally sat down to write.

Besides the different genres, there are also different types of writers. One of the most popular is that of the freelance writer. Elliot is a freelance writer; she signs contracts with publishing companies, and writes and turns in the material contracted. This allows some greater flexibility and freedom, versus writers in salaried positions, such as journalists, technical writers, etc., but even freelance writers need discipline, perhaps more so than salaried writers. Some get paid royalties for every book sold that they've written. Elliot works under this condition. However, this leaves the writer's income very uncertain, "which means the amount I earn is dependent on how well my work sells."

A common question to writers is where they get their inspiration or ideas. Elliot explains, "I've always made up stories, so I can't really answer that question... I think it's a habit of mind, a propensity to spin out situations in a dramatic form."

She states that, with one exception, she doesn't base characters on people she knows. Although, she does "take bits and pieces of traits or qualities" she observes in others, sometimes adapting those traits "because they interest me." This observing and borrowing of qualities, Elliot believes, just comes from that habit of mind. It leads her to observe others, and keeps her interested in the behavior of people.

"I don't actually 'think up' ideas." Instead of writing about ideas, Elliot writes about consequences. She will create a situation with a conflict and opposition, introduce the players, and then "set the juggernaut in motion." She begins with a few specific events and a destination, but the rest simply, well, not always so simply, unfolds as the story progresses.

"I travel as much as I can, which isn't as much as I'd like to," Elliot adds. Traveling to foreign countries allows Elliot to observe the behavior of people in other cultures, and "gives me an insight into the diversity of human experience," which she feels is necessary for sci-fi and fantasy writers.

Aspiring writers may hear the advice to "write what you know." Not the easiest thing when you write about fictional creatures, and futuristic technology that doesn't exist yet. Elliot's opinion is that the phrase can be either restrictive or flexible. "I do write what I know," she claims, "I know what it is to be human, so I can write about character. At times I have felt like an outsider, so I can write about the clash of cultures and the idea of being an alien in a society you don't understand. The human condition and the beauty and terror of the universe provide a vast canvas on which to work." Everything else is research and imagination.

Elliot advises that writing is not an easy way to make quick money. It's hard work. And she emphasizes this point by stating the average income for freelance writers is about $8000 a year. There are a lot of factors which affect the income of freelance writer, the most important being how well a book sells, which can change according to current tastes. It takes a long time to receive royalties, months for the first part of an advance to come after the months it takes to get a contract. "Writing is not a career for the faint of heart or those without discipline and focus." Despite that, though, Elliot happily states that "there's no other job I'd rather have!"

To aspiring writers, Elliot asks you to decide why you write. "Is it an avocation for you, or your vocation?" She adds that salaried writers have their own advantages and drawbacks versus a freelance. Some writers do so full-time, others have a stable job, and write on the side. "There is no One Right Way."

Lastly, Elliot shares her three point plan: "Be compassionate. Be ruthless. Be persistent. Be compassionate: Love what you do — it's not worth writing otherwise — and be patient with yourself and with the process. Be ruthless: Revise, rewrite, rethink, improve; if you're not willing to do that, then find a different line of work. Most importantly, be persistent. Don't give up."

Sabrina Favors is a staff writer at Ka Leo, where this article originally appeared.  It is reprinted here with permission.  

Sabrina was born in 1984 and lived on the East Coast until she was six, when she moved with her family to Hawai'i. She's lived there ever since, as the child of a military man and as a civilian. Sabrina is a sophomore majoring in English at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. This is her second year as a feature writer for the campus newspaper, the Ka Leo O' Hawai'i. Last year she won two journalism awards from the UH Board of Publications: a second place award for Feature Profiles, and a first place award for Feature Advancers. She reads and writes a lot of fantasy-- if only textbooks were as interesting-- and is working towards becoming a freelance fiction writer.

Visit Ka Leo at http://www.kaleo.org. 

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