I was reading over an old blog post on the subject of short stories versus novels, and the thing that struck me about whatever I was ranting about was how dated the thing was. Irrelevant, even. I am constantly reminded that so many “truths” that I had internalized to the core of my being about the writing and publishing of sf/f just aren’t true anymore. Some were never true at all.

It’s something I should be used to by now. Back when I was struggling to “break in” at even an entry level, I had a very clear idea of what I wanted, and where I was trying to get to. The field had fairly clear parameters. I knew what magazines “counted” and what my targets were. For writers, I knew who the major players were. But a funny thing happened on my way to entering the field—by the time I got there, it wasn’t the same field. Remember the phrase, “There were giants in the earth in those days”? Well, there were. My first sale was to the venerable Amazing Stories, the absolute oldest of the magazines and arguably the first real sf magazine, period. By the time I sold my second story, to Asimov’s SF, Amazing was no more. My third story sale was to a magazine that didn’t even exist when I was targeting the first two, SF Age, now also gone. For the first fourteen years that I was selling stories my “go to” market was Realms of Fantasy, and now? Poof. Gone.

And it wasn’t just magazines. I had my heroes, writers who were almost like gods and goddesses to me. And by the time I felt somewhat part of the field, again, it wasn’t there anymore. Many of the old gods had died off or retired. New people, like me, were filling the niches. Some would go on to be major players, people I’d never even heard of in the preceding years. I was where I wanted to be, but it wasn’t where I thought it was. Continue reading →