Sunday, July 23, 2017

Stop the presses!

To my many friends who know me as a science fiction and fantasy writer, this is what I do for a living.

This is called a newspaper. It made from ground up trees that are flattened, dried and then smeared with a dark petroleum product in a process called "printing" - a durable technology that's worked for 500 years but finally seems to be on the way out.

However, this newspaper is chock full of news and items of the people who live in its city. To rephrase something Daniel Webster said in the famous Dartmouth case, "It's a small paper, but yet there are those who love it."

Years ago, I was on a panel on writing at an AggieCon in College Station. A member of the audience asked the six authors if we would quit our day job and write full time if we could.

I was the only one who said I wouldn't quit my day job.

I've always enjoyed being a journalist. I love the variety of the work and the public contact. Writing is a lonely, solitary occupation. I've very outgoing and I'd go nuts if I had to stay tied to a computer grinding out fiction day in and day out for a living.

Given the amount of time I DO devote to fiction, I'm very proud of what I've accomplished, and I am extraordinary proud of my first novel, "Another Girl, Another Planet".

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