This blog has monthly themes and, curiously, this month has two. "A funny thing happened..." and it's the 8th anniversary of Romancing the Genres. I was invited to join some 7-1/2 years ago, but I'll pretend that's it's my 8th anniversary here as well.
And it is curious, but a funny thing did happen over the last eight years...I became a writer.
It's actually a very curious progression that allows me to say that and for it to have meaning.
Just over twenty-five years ago I was a burned-out corporate project manager who had lost his career, his job, the house he'd spent 7 years remodeling, everything (courtesy of an unscrupulous business partner). Twenty-five years ago I was bicycling around the world and, for reasons unknown to me, I'd begun writing my first novel (which was also my first fiction...ever). That novel would eventually turn into my first novel sale some four years later to a tiny house that folded soon after.
Eight years ago, in 2011, I was once again a corporate project manager, I was again burning out, but I was also writing. I'd written five or six novels over the fifteen-plus years, garnered my requisite large folder of rejections (somewhere north of 440 of them), and miracle of miracles, sold my first series. My "little hobby" was still a year from launching its first novel on anything more significant than this curious device called a Kindle (the so-called Kindle Christmas marking mainstream acceptance wasn't until December 2011).
In early 2013 (once again spit out by corporate), my wife and I made the leap. We bet on my writing. I wrote my ass off and it worked; I've now been a full-time writer for over six years.
But it's never that simple, is it?
When did I become a writer?
Was it July 22nd, 1993 when I wrote the first words of what eventually became my first fantasy novel and first sale, Cookbook from Hell: Reheated?
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Curiously (or should I say "funnily along the way..."), it seems to just be happening now. I've written over sixty novels and seventy-five short stories. You'd think that would have tipped me over. But it was my third non-fiction book that has finally flipped the switch inside my brain.
Self-help references for writers often strike me as near comical. Some are great, but so many of them are "now I've written two books, so I have tons of great advice to share." I wondered how much experience I'd need before I felt that I had something truly worth sharing to help other writers.
I found it. Brand new this month, it contains everything I've learned to date about character voice.
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And curiously enough, a funny thing has happened over the last eight years--perhaps most of all in the writing of this little book. I'm not longer an ex-corporate project manager who writes.
Without my really becoming aware of it: I am now a writer.
Has your brain flipped that switch yet? If so, what did it take for that to happen to you?
M.L.
"Matt" Buchman has over 60 novels, 75 short stories, and a
fast-growing pile of audiobooks out in the world. M.L. writes romance,
thrillers, and SF&F…so far. Three-times Booklist "Top-10 Romance Novel
of the Year." NPR and B&N "Best 5 Romance of the Year." RITA
finalist. As a 30-year project manager with a geophysics degree who has:
designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, and bicycled solo
around the world, he is awed by what's possible. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.
3 comments:
I do think of myself as an author rather than a writer. The idea that I was an author came when my first book published March 4, 2014 not when my short stories were published in an Anthology. However, that was not something I admitted to at that time. Trying to pin down when I started answering the question "What do you do?" with "I"m an author." It's a bit fuzzy. But in writing this comment, I know that's been my answer for this past year...published my first non-fiction and the 8th novel.
And The Blog Queens are ever so glad you said "Yes" to our invitation.
I was a writer, privately, until I sold my first book in 2010 and then I became an author. I didn't describe myself to others as a romance author, though, because of a fear of being ridiculed for writing mommy-porn bodice-rippers, grrr. So for the longest time, when asked, I'd say I wrote fiction. About four years ago I put on my big girl panties and now I say I write romantic fiction and I don't care if they scoff and snigger.
I've been a story teller all my life. And a writer even in high school, where I had three years of journalism and was editor of my high school weekly newspaper. I even helped out down in the print room in the basement. A fun time. I wanted to be a college teacher of English so I could write too. And publish papers. So I got a master's in English. But I ended up teaching in a junior high school when we moved to Oregon, and feeling trapped. I started writing fiction the summer before I quit teaching. I wrote my first two novels on a typewriter, then bought my first computer. I sold the fourth novel I wrote to Harlequin in 1992. But chronic illness kept me from even finishing another book for years. After several more rejections by Harlequin, I decided I didn't need the pressure of deadlines anyway, so I started working toward indie publishing. And finished three books before publishing them late last year. I'll always be a writer. That's what I do. I may not have a career that makes me money, but that won't stop me from writing. I write between down times due to health issues, but my health doesn't keep me from sitting here at the computer.
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