Publishing: a market in flux

The more I write, the more I understand how little I know about writing. The more I research publishing, the more the mystery of this world grows.

While there are certainly defined and concrete aspects to the industry, it is constantly shifting and adapting to engage market trends, consumer desires, and technological advances.

It’s hard to keep up.

Good writers today know how to find their niche. You’re supposed to get specific—or if you feel adventurous, bridge categories to create something unique. Make your own sci-fi western.

But just like the publishing industry, genres are in constant flux. New ones are born, and old fads fall out of the spotlight.

Do you know the difference between biopunk and postcyberpunk?  

I don’t.

But by the time I learn, the definition will have changed anyway. Besides, biopunk was so last season. Atompunk is where it’s at.

It Begins

For new writers, the thought of getting published seems like a journey equivalent to Frodo's march on Mordor. While I'm tempted to stay home in the Shire, if I don't start this adventure now, I never will.

Step #1: Write something!

Here's a snippet of a flash fiction piece I'm working on, born from my travels in Venice.

               The plague doctor waited over the canal. Still air carried the alien buzzing to him through the dark, and he trembled at what swarmed in the piazza. It was close, but separated by a watery maze that could have been designed by Minos himself.   

                He gripped the bridge rail and tried to breath, drawing slowly through the small holes in his mask. The long, sloping beak made it difficult, but the filter would protect him. It had been protecting the doctors for centuries.
                But he was not fighting the plague of his ancestors, the flesh-eating spots the soldiers brought back from the war. No, the plague he fought was eating the city.
                What started as small pockets had quickly combined into colonies.  No one was ready, no one knew, until they started devouring whole neighborhoods, eating away at the city’s foundations as they gouged down into the Grand Canal.
                Tonight, his whole purpose, his life’s work, would bring their destruction to the surface.

So come along with me. Start the journey. Write something!