NEWSLETTER #103: May 8, 2018
Dear People,
This is slightly late because my webmaster (who does everything about the website except create original content) is off sharpening her genealogical skills.
I mentioned in the March newsletter (102) that Though Hell Should Bar the Way was coming out in April, and indeed it’s out. I changed various things in this most recent RCN novel. In particular, it’s told in the first person by a character new to the series. A writer has to keep changing his premises or he’ll get stale.
Some readers don’t like the change, others do; but neither of those things affects my decision. I’m writing the books, and what seems right for my head at the time is what I’m going to do. Of course I want everybody in the world to love everything I write, but that isn’t going to happen regardless. At least if I write for myself I can accurately judge how well I’ve succeeded. If it fails for me, I know to do it a different way the next time.
In fact, I think Though Hell etc succeeded pretty well. Though I’m planning to use a different setting and characters on the next space opera–the one I’m thinking about now.
Which is a good segue. Since I turned in a novel in March, it won’t surprise anybody who knows me that I’m gathering material for another one.
In the 19th century there were a number of governmental scientific voyages, the most famous of which is (in my judgment) the voyage of HMS Beagle on which Charles Darwin gathered the information and insights which enabled him to express the Theory of Evolution.
These voyages differed from those of Captain Cook who was concerned with discovering new lands and mapping them. The Beagle and her crew (and still more HMS Challenger and similar ships from other countries, including a number from the US) had broader purposes. They made extensive soundings of the sea bed, took formal ethnographic data and artifacts, and collected specimens of animals (including some they had netted or dredged from the sea).
A voyage like that provides a lot of fun story possibilities. I’m reading memoirs and considering ways of using the material.
Another thing I did was to write a short story in a similar milieu in order to see how it works. I did this when I was considering what became the RCN series. Dave Weber was putting together the first of his Honorverse shared-universe volumes (More Than Honor).
I wrote A Grand Tour for him. I didn’t (and didn’t intend to) go anywhere with the two focal characters from that story, but the story helped me understand the mechanics of a two-viewpoint space opera.
This time Toni Weisskopf and a couple of her editors were joking about doing an anthology of stories by writers named David–and Toni decided to do it. The editor, David Afsharirad, solicited me as a Baen author named David. (The cover artist is David Mattingly.) I told Toni I doubted the book would make money, but I said I’d do a story–because it was just the sort of silly thing that Jim Baen and I would talk ourselves into doing, and I really miss Jim.
Having done so, it struck me that the story would be a great way to test the new milieu. (I’d already promised to do it; the planned novel just gave me a reason beyond whimsy to do so.) It also struck me that Tony Daniel generally asks for a linked short story for the website to advertise the new novel. Worst case, if Toni comes to her senses and scraps the anthology idea, they can use this story on Baen.com. (That’s taking the long view, but I do take the long–in human terms–view.)
I buckled down to the story and have shipped it off at 7,500 words. I’m now returning to my note-taking and plotting, freshly inspirited. (The story is The Savage. I know nothing about the anthology beyond what I said above.)
I mentioned in Newsletter 102 that there would be a podcast interview and linked short-story connected with Though Hell etc. They’re now up. The interview is in two parts. I honestly don’t know whether or not anybody listens to the podcasts, but I try to be interesting and you may occasionally hear something about Baen history that you won’t get any other way.
In the intro to Though Hell etc I mention reading a book about pirates when I was a kid and said that I now suspected the striking illos were by NC Wyeth. A fan just informed me that the art is by Wyeth’s teacher, Howard Pyle. (I will shortly go down to my friendly local bookstore and order a copy of Pyle’s A Book of Pirates to reread after 60 years.) I have the best fans in the world.
I like to write short stories and I’m good at them, but I haven’t written many since I got seriously into novels. Novels provide better money for time spent (by about a factor of ten), and there aren’t many serious short-story venues any more.
Recently I thought about it. I don’t need money any more: I’m 72 years old and didn’t piss my money away when I started making it. Barring disaster, I won’t die in poverty; and disaster could overwhelm any savings or portfolio. There’s no reason I shouldn’t do a short story if I feel like it.
That’s why I agreed to do the story for the (untitled) Davids Anthology at 7-cents/word. And that’s why I was willing to do a story for an attempt to restart a print version of Amazing Stories when the projectors approached me. The offer was 6-cents/word, which is fair money for a short story; but as I said, the money didn’t matter.
I had a very bad experience recently with another newbie editor, however, so I put in a proviso: that when I handed in my story, they would accept it as-was and pay me at the agreed (6-cent) rate. They were incensed–that would mean they couldn’t even reformat it for printing!
Of course it wouldn’t have meant that–but the objection confirmed me in my belief that I’d been right to be wary of them. I do not think that my work is perfect, nor that no editor could improve it.
I didn’t think that this crew could improve it, however.
I am a competent professional. The projectors were not professionals, and they’d just given me proof that they weren’t competent either. I was asking them to commit about $350-500 of their money (I would happily write to any length they requested). They were asking me to commit some thousands of dollars worth of my writing time. (The story would take a couple weeks to do properly. My annual income varies widely, but $2K/week would be in the ballpark.)
I was unwilling to pay that much money in order to be aggravated, which is what happened when I wrote for an amateur last year.
Jeepers, I get mad just thinking back on that business. Live and learn.
BREAKING NEWS! Tor just reverted thirteen titles, which Baen will be bringing out in some fashion realsoonnow. Toni will discuss the plan with Marla and will tell me.
The titles include a number of series books–but not the first book in those series. Also, one that I’d very much like to see in Baen’s hands, The Forlorn Hope, is not included. I don’t have any cause for complaint: Tor paid me good money for those titles. If they’re still earning money for Tor, Tor has every reason (as well as the right) to keep them.
On the particularly good side, two of my self-standing early novels are included: Birds of Prey and Bridgehead. Birds is one of my best early books; Bridgehead has too many characters because I was still learning how to structure a novel, but there’s really a lot of good stuff in it. I’m glad to see it available again.
More as I know more, people.
Now I’ll return to taking notes from Log-Letters from the Challenger and similar material as I gear up to plot the next one.
Go off and be friendly and courteous to other folks! The world will be better for it, and so will you.
–Dave Drake