I’m going to try to help those who are interested to figure out the ways of spending money smartly to learn as much as possible in the career of fiction writing. But first, I need to put this all in a little perspective.
You decide you want to be a lawyer. That means you have seven years of college ahead of you. Four years of undergrad and three years of law school. And when you finish and pass the bar in your home state, you will be licensed to make a living in that state, to practice law only in that state. In other words, you don’t have a job, but you can go get one as a lawyer.
You decide you want to be a fiction writer, you still should get an undergrad degree in some subject like history or political science or business. (Not creative writing or journalism. You will have too much to unlearn when you are finished, which is a topic for another blog later.) When finished, you will have no license to do anything, but you can sell your fiction, if you are good enough, throughout the world, not just in one state. Of course, in college you won’t have much time to write, so that’s unlikely coming right out of school.
So the comparison for money comes down to the three years of law school to get a license to get a job in one state or the cost of learning how to be an internationally selling fiction writer.
Now, I honestly have no idea how much it costs these days to go to a decent law school. Not a clue. I started law school in 1978. On television these days, they call that decade “Life on Mars” and to be honest with you, looking back at it, it feels that way. (I actually signed a copy last week of my very first published short story from 1975. Stunning anyone could find a copy of that.)
So let me make a not-so-educated guess to the cost of law school, just to make the number round. Books, tuition and such for three years of law school would be near $100,000. Give or take. And that’s to get the right to go find a job in one state. If you are good.
Remember, during those three years, you won’t earn a penny from your legal training. You might get an apprenticeship during your last summer with a law firm, but you’re going to have to be really, really good in these times to have that happen. And when you get out you still have to go find a job, because hanging out your own shingle right out of law school is a sure way to go very deep in debt very quickly, far more than law school cost you.
What about the cost of learning how to write and become an international selling writer? Can you do it for under $100,000 these days? Oh sure. Can you do it for zero money spent? Nope, never heard of it happening. So the cost is somewhere in the middle for most of us.
Now, I must state the number one rule of fiction writers. Ready. Keep this in mind, put it above your computer, and you will always be served well.
#1 Rule: Money always flows to the writer.
Only thing you ever pay for is to go to a convention, writer’s conference, or other type of education. You never pay for a book doctor or pay an agent or anything like that. Just education and travel. Otherwise, all money flows to the writer. Period.
So, how to get the best bang for your education buck in fiction writing? I have a couple of general guidelines that always seem to have served me well.
General guideline #1: Go listen and learn from writers farther down the road you want to walk.
This general guideline keeps you from giving too much credit to an unpublished writer talking on some blog somewhere, or on a panel at a sf convention. Go find the professionals and listen to them. Then take everything they say with an eye to how it works for you. In other words, bring the giant salt shaker with lots of grains of salt.
General guideline #2: Stay away from university writing programs, for the most part, unless they are taught by someone who fits guideline #1. Joyce Carol Oates teaches a university class every semester, so does Joe Haldeman, and many others. I’d gladly sit in their classes, no matter what they are talking about. Again, see Guideline #1. Why stay away from university writing programs in general? Simply, because their goal is not to teach you how to be a professional fiction writer, but instead to teach you how to teach writing. Nothing wrong with that unless you stumble in there expecting to learn how to be an international selling fiction writer.
General Guideline #3: Go to conferences where you can hear major New York editors talk. Note, I did not say agents. Editors, for the most part, unless they are very young, know the business and often are blunt about it. Agents just work for writers and often don’t know squat about the business itself. Go listen to the editors. Again, bring the giant salt shaker and filter everything through the grains of salt to get what works for you.
General Guideline #4: Find the teaching environment that is suited for your level. If you have been publishing regularly and sign up for the six week Clarion SF workshop, you will be bored to tears in a week. It will be way below you. On the other side, our workshops here on the professional side are meant for people who have gotten through all the beginning writer issues and are firing hard. Our programs here (except for the Kris and Dean Shows) would kill a beginning writer and we won’t let you in because we want to help instead of harm. So in all the programs around the country, watch your level, or another way of putting it, be clear with yourself where you are on the publishing road so you can find the best education for where you are and what you need to learn.
General Guideline #5: Every year, without missing, buy the RWA Nationals recordings from the RWA Nationals conference, and then listen to every one of them. You will learn more than you can ever imagine. Cheapest education you can ever get and not leave home.
General Guideline #6: Join writer’s organizations and get on e-mail lists with other writers. Now, in this wonderful world of the internet and information sharing, if you are good at screening out the odd stuff and getting to what you need, you can learn a ton and never leave your internet computer. E-mail lists with other writers is a prime way to learn and information share. Get on them.
Every writer’s organization has e-mail lists, so join a few organizations and get on the lists and then lurk and listen and learn. Again, bring the salt shaker and try to only listen to those farther down the road that you want to walk.
What’s all this cost for the average writer? Not a clue. But I do know that writers who are afraid to put themselves out on the money side a little, often don’t make the learning strides they need to jump ahead. I’ve seen this over and over and over I’m afraid.
It goes like this: “I can’t afford that workshop or conference this time around. Maybe next year.” Of course, next year it’s the same.
Let me give you all the dirty secret of all published, working professional fiction writers. We all started off with day jobs, none of us could afford to travel to conferences or conventions or join writer’s groups. But we all found a way. That’s one of the main reasons we made it, to be honest. We found a way to learn and get the education we needed.
I often went to a convention and simply hoped to find some food in the convention suites because I had no money to buy food. Or, as I started selling, I prayed an editor would buy me a meal along the way. I packed food from home in coolers, or I just flat had one bag of pretzels and managed to make that and water last for the weekend. (Pretzels are filling and expand in your stomach with water. A cheap writer trick.) I often shared hotel rooms with three or four or (one time) seven other writers to save that cost.
On a couple trips from Moscow, Idaho, there were five of us in the small car to share gas costs. On one trip early on, Kris and I were so broke, we offered to drive a book dealer’s van for him the 2,000 miles to the convention, if he paid the gas and our food along the way.
Did it still cost money to go learn and make contacts and listen to more experienced writers? Yes. It costs.
Not as much as law school, but it costs, every month, every year, and you have to be willing to pay the costs to learn. If you wanted to be a lawyer, you would find the way to pay or borrow the $100,000.00 or so for the three years. You want to be an internationally selling fiction writer. You have to be willing to do the same to go get the education.
You have to be hungry to learn. Hungry beyond all reason.
Kris and I understand this, since we went through it, and we try to keep our workshop costs as low as possible. I have watched writers come here, share food costs, share rides, share anything to save a few bucks. They are the writers I know who will make it in the long run. They are willing to pay the price, both in time and money to get an education.
One last story: Very late one Saturday night in Moscow, Idaho, I got a phone call from Algis Budrys at the bar I was working at. He told me about the workshop he was putting on. Four instructors: Algis Budrys, Jack Williamson, Fred Pohl, and Gene Wolfe. Only twelve writers at my level (selling short fiction) were being invited, was I interested?
Duh, I said sure. He said, good, you need to be in Taos, New Mexico in one week. Workshop is free, but you have to pay for your own food, lodging, and travel. At that point I was working two jobs, but I still said to Algis Budrys, “I’ll be there.”
I had very little money in the bank and a car payment and apartment payment due in two weeks. I threatened to quit both jobs if they didn’t give me the two weeks off. Kris has a similar story (that’s where we met) and so does Robert Reed and Marina Fitch and Martha Soukup, and the other now-well-published writers who said yes to Algis Budrys that weekend.
I made it home two-and-a-half weeks later with exactly $65 dollars left to my name. It was worth every penny. I was willing to pay the price when it came to money in exchange for education.
Cheers, Dean
