Resnick on the Loose. Mike Resnick
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Dedication
To Carol, as always,
And to my favorite curmudgeons:
Eric Flint
David Gerrold
Guy H. Lillian III
Barry Malzberg
Frank M. Robinson
Bill Schafer
Copyright Information
Copyright © 2012 by Kirinyaga, Inc.
All rights reserved.
For more information, visit www.mikeresnick.com
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
www.wildsidebooks.com
Introduction
I met Mike Resnick long before I actually met him. This is not a tricky literary device, it’s the simple truth. Here’s how it happened:
Some years ago—many years now, thankfully—I was among the teeming ranks of those miserable unfortunates known by the oxymoronic term of “unpublished authors.” This is a state of affairs which is sorry enough in its own right. What makes it worse—far worse—is that there is no clearly defined route, mechanism, seminar, study group, transcendental meditation or mystical rapture through which the unpublished author can figure out how to get from the aforementioned oxymoronic state to that of an actual, you know, Author. Which is to say, someone who is actually Published—and in a recognized and accepted professional venue, to boot.
The problem isn’t lack of advice and counsel. Oh, no. Advice and counsel is ubiquitous. I would go so far as to say that those who advise unpublished authors on how to get published are as multitudinous as the walking, talking oxymorons themselves.
This is not surprising, since most of the people giving advice on how to get published to unpublished authors are themselves unpublished. At least 85%, at a rough guess—and if you’re looking simply at the instructors of creative writing classes, that figure climbs well past 95%.
But even the remaining counselors aren’t usually much help. True, they are genuine authors, in that they have indeed gotten published in one or more professional venues. The problem is that the great majority of them fall into one of two camps:
First, those who have indeed gotten published and can therefore legitimately call themselves “authors,” but…
Barely. As a rule, most authors have only published a handful of stories, and those consist almost entirely of short fiction. Half the time, probably, they’ve only published one or at most two stories.
So how much good advice can they really give you? Not much. In fact, in many cases their advice is more damaging than what you get from unpublished authors, because their status makes their advice seem weightier than it really is.
Of the remaining counselors, we are now talking about a very small percentage of people who try their hand at writing. These people are indeed successful authors and have gotten published many times. And yet…
Nine times out of ten, the best you can say for their advice is that you need to take it with a pillar of salt. That’s because the simple fact is that most successful authors don’t really understand very much about publishing. They got where they are from their own talent, usually combined with the services of a good agent—and it’s their agent who handles all their business.
Such was the state of affairs in which I was mired, those many years ago. Luckily for me, I subscribed to a magazine for unpublished authors called Speculations. (Which, sadly, is no longer being published.) At the time, the centerpiece of the magazine was a column titled Ask Bwana. And that’s how I met Mike Resnick. Mike was the author of that column, and issue after issue he would respond to questions sent in by wannabe authors with answers that for the first time in my experience made sense, were coherent, and provided me with a guide to action.
I didn’t actually meet Mike in person for another decade or so. That encounter happened in 2006 when he submitted a story to a magazine I was editing at the time, Jim Baen’s Universe. I bought the story, which went on to get nominated for the Hugo. It wasn’t long before we became friends, and about a year later I asked him to co-edit the magazine with me. Since then, Mike and I have edited an anthology together (The Dragon Done It) and will soon be collaborating on a novel (The Gods of Sagittarius). We are also both judges in the Writers of the Future contest.
My opinion of Mike’s knowledge of publishing in general and science fiction in particular hasn’t changed a bit over the years. There are very few people who understand the subject as well as he does, and none who know it better. As you will find out for yourself when you read this volume.
—Eric Flint
March, 201
Part 1: The Jim Baen’s Universe Editorials
Introduction to Part 1
Jim Baen’s Universe was a noble experiment, the highest-paying prozine in the business. It lasted for just about four years, and I was Eric Flint’s co-editor for the last three of them. One of my jobs was to write an editorial for each issue, and here they all are, in order.
Howdy
So here I am, the new Executive Editor of Jim Baen’s Universe. And here you are, wondering who the hell I am and what I like.
Who I am is easy. I’m Mike Resnick. I sold my first science fiction novel exactly 40 years ago (don’t hunt for it; it’s pretty awful). I sold my first few science fiction stories even earlier (you might very well enjoy hunting for them; they were the “redeeming social value” in a trio of men’s magazines, stuck in there to make all the naked women legal). I attended my first Worldcon in 1963—I was a mature 21, my child-bride was 20—and we’ve been going back ever since.
I started selling stories and articles when I was a teenager. Somewhere along the way to 2007 I learned how to write acceptable prose (though I’m sure there are critics who would disagree). After producing a few million lesser words in lesser fields, I’ve now sold over 50 science fiction novels, close to 200 stories, more than a dozen collections, even a couple of screenplays, and I’ve edited close to 50 anthologies. Along the way I’ve won a bunch of Hugos (5), lost an even bigger bunch (23), and according to Locus I have won more awards for my short science fiction that any writer living or dead. (I have also lost more, but you have my permission to forget or ignore this fact.)
I’ve edited anthologies, as I said, and I spent a couple of years this decade editing science fiction for BenBella Books, but until now I have never edited a science fiction magazine. I’ve wanted this freedom for a long time. By freedom, I mean that just about every time you sell an anthology, you must sell it based on a theme, and while it’s interesting to edit the best Alternate Kennedy stories or the best Sherlock Holmes in the Future stories, it is a bit limiting for both the writer and the editor. Here at Jim Baen’s Universe I am free to select the best stories regardless of theme or subject matter, to help writers produce the best stories they can write rather than the best Space Cadet or Dinosaur or Christmas Ghost story they can write.
So what do I like?
It’s going to sound like a cop-out, but I like good writing. I used to write in the “adult” field, so I guarantee you can’t shock me. I’ve sold perhaps 60 funny science fiction stories, so you’re not going to get turned away because your story isn’t serious enough. I’ve won awards at every length, so I will not react unfavorably to any length.
But give me a story that’s poorly written, carelessly conceived, clumsily worded, or filled with cardboard characters, and I don’t care if you’ve been my friend for half a century, you’re not going to sell me. Jim Baen’s Universe is not just paying the best rates in the field, but much the best, literally 3 times more than Analog, Asimov’s and F&SF pay for short stories by major authors, and for that kind of money, we expect—and I demand—stories that are worth what we’re paying. Simple as that.
Other than the demand for good writing, the market’s