Some basic guidelines for creators for the upcoming local economic collapse/global churn but also in general because why not
Money flows to you, not from you.
But pay every collaborator you’re supposed to, full amounts, on time or before.
Get an agent.
Diverse sources of market information.
One experienced ally > 10 internet how-to articles
Community, not competition.
Do not price-undercut, it damages everyone.
Every time you work for free you harm yourself and others.
Exposure = selfie
Give good advice, take good advice.
Learn the rules before breaking them, then break them at will.
Read (/see) more all the time.
There is no Best Way to do anything. There is the best way for you, which you figure out over time.
Do not compare yourself with other creators, you don’t know all their privileges/struggles
Any ‘X is popular, create X’ trend-chasing advice is two years too late.
Always revise, rework, rewrite.
Not repeating huge mistakes is best.
If an artist’s lifestyle is what you want, focus on that. You can skip the creating entirely.
Anyone who says X aspect of storytelling is unimportant is probably bad at X aspect of storytelling. They’re all important
No form of creating is better than any other, though one might be best for you.
Cliques/crab-in-bucket-collectives are a great route to midlists (though communities/collaborative groups can revolutionise fields)
Social media is not helping you.
Give creation the time it needs. And the space. And breaks when you need them, and you need them.
Popularity/influence contests are not a measure of value
Most ‘Show Don’t Tell’-esque better-writing Wisdoms are stupid.
You have to keep at it until you get it right.
A rubbish draft is infinitely better than a perfect unwritten thing.
Backup. To the cloud, to a hard drive, to your face.
Try not to break a book/film down into its constituent atoms for Structural Learning the very first time you read/see it
Most success is privilege, luck, and bloody-minded stubbornness enabled by privilege and luck.
It’s supposed to be fun if you have no fun for years please stop
Learn to tell useful feedback (this specific thing is not working, this other thing/aspect/character is wonderful) from useless (what if this were set on Mars, all good literature is set underwater, it’s not Kafkaesque enough)
Don’t take masterclasses from people who have never done the thing they are teaching successfully.
Don’t chase agents/producers/publishers who are the biggest names in the field unless they are also the right a/p/p for you.
Bathe in a sea of rejections. They mean nothing. Learn to translate them into what they actually mean. You only need one yes.
The perfect sentence doesn’t exist.
No one creates a perfect fully-formed masterpiece on their first try.
Your voice will develop over time and hopefully not get stuck
Very very few people get to do what they love for a living so please feel grateful if you can.
Try not to be an asshole? There are several people who get away with it, but still try?
Expect major delays in contracts and payments (even with an agent)
Try and build a circle of trust, whisper networks, information exchanges - all imperfect, but tend to correct over time.
Make financial plans that do not depend on lottery wins from creative-project sales. Learn how to manage your money.
Try and avoid shady collaborators/work unless absolutely desperate. Not being anxious all the time is worth a lot of money.
Have friends outside your field who have no interest in your work (though are still nice enough to like your promos)
You are neither as terrible nor as incredible as you think you are.
The more empathy you have, the better your creative work will be.
Don’t punch down. Don’t dumb down. (Yes, both can be rewarding, but please dont.)
Especially in the 2020s, all art is political, and you can’t please everyone.
Finish shit
Explore new platforms, especially indie ones, whenever you can. Your terms of engagement with monopolies/oligopolies will get worse over time.
Find the line at which you can promote your work without being an utter nuisance to yourself and others, hopefully, and don’t stop until you reach that line. No one else is going to do it for you.
Fiction requires logic and structural integrity even when reality doesnt.
Figure out the end as soon as you can because you Have to stick the landing.
Diversify income streams, opportunities, media. Whole fields and industries change abruptly.
Be nice to people who read/see your work. Unless they’re not nice to you.
Don’t review reviews. Don’t fight reviews.
No one owes you anything and everyone has their own hellscape to deal with at any point of time.
Nothing is more important than the wellbeing of the people you love.
Animals are nice. If you have no access to real animals, animal GIFs are great too. Except pigeons, wasps and flying cockroaches, to hell with those.
Still talking about them Chosen, well, Shortlisted Spirits
So this happened a while ago now, if you’re on my social media you’re probably saturated with it :D
which led to:
And an Instalive from the JCB Prize account with booktuber Smriti Sant (@santreads)
And a kind review from Vijayalakshi ‘@granthamaven’ Harish.
Meanwhile, this is making me feel older than Macaulay Culkin being my age: a whole decade since Turbulence! Not very sure where it went.
Reading!
Devoured Gareth Powell’s Embers of War series.
And Emma Newman’s brilliant Planetfall books
Caught up with the new Tamsyn Muir necromancer adventure, Harrow the Ninth
Karuna Ezara Parikh’s debut novel is out now.
As is Siddhartha Sarma’s new novel. (Also a plug for Year of The Weeds if you haven’t read it yet)
Krishna Udayasankar’s latest is up for preorder. It’s a prequel to her Aryavarta trilogy, which means brouhaha is on the horizon when it releases in October.
More reading
Tashan Mehta on the pandemic and Indian speculative fiction
Stop the realism vs sf/fantasy debate
The Indian queens who modelled for the world’s first vaccine.
Venus is a Russian planet, says Russian space agency chief.
Emily Ratajkowski reclaims her image
Civilization builder discusses that old-school nuclear-bomber Gandhi
The Privileged have entered their Escape Pods
70 greatest conspiracy theories in pop culture
Back in a bit
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Meanwhile, do join me on Twitter, FB or Instagram, or drop in at my website. Instead of a GIF this time, I’m going to leave you with a link to a wholly unexpected and incredible compliment.
Actually no, I do have entertaining video to bid you farewell with - though I suspect you’ve already seen the Dave Grohl-Nandi Bushell saga