maggie l. wood ([info]faerie_writer) wrote,
2005-08-14 10:11:00
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  • Mood: contemplative

Publishing Too Young

[info]sartorias mentioned an excellent essay today, written by Justine Larbalestier, on publishing too young. The only thing I didn't agree with in the essay was what [info]janni mentioned in her journal concerning teenagers publishing in adult venues.

Justine wrote:

"I have a couple of friends who were not so fortunate. They were first published in adult venues when they were still teenagers. Both of them are horrified that their learning and growing as a writer has been done so publicly and that there's nothing they can do to make all that evidence of early missteps go away. They both wish they'd spent more time honing their craft and less time desperately trying to get into print."

I agree with [info]janni, in that today's tough markets are going to make it a lot more improbable that anything embarrassingly amateurish is going to get published in the first place (unless it's somewhere obscure and non-paying).

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  • 6 comments

Anonymous

August 14 2005, 15:05:29 UTC 6 years ago

Thanks for linking to me. For the record I think you're both most likely right. The friends I mentioned are ancient like me and were publishing their juvenilia waaay back in the eighties.

Justine Larbalestier

[info]faerie_writer

August 14 2005, 15:16:51 UTC 6 years ago

I *loved* your essay! Very good points without being preachy. There seems to be such a pressure on young people to be published these days. I feel sad for them. At their age, I was just mucking around with writing. No stress. No deadlines. Just enjoying myself. But I think your essay will, hopefully, reach a lot of people. Thanks for posting it!

~Maggie :)

[info]janni

August 14 2005, 22:28:19 UTC 6 years ago

Yeah, I actually talked about--but then I realized my post was going in too many directions at once and deleted it--how I do have earlier writings, from the 80s, that I'm really, really, extremely, very very very glad never saw the light of day.

I'm rather thankful there was no (accessible to me) Internet at that point, or those writings would still be out there, even now ...

[info]marykuna

August 15 2005, 23:25:19 UTC 6 years ago

This is a topic that interests me lately, because in school last term I worked on a group project about teens who are (or who aspire to be) published authors. It will be an issue of the YA Hotline, but God knows when it will be published. Sometime between now and three years from now, I imagine.

When I look at some of the reviews for The Prophecy of the Stones, I figure that it might be improbable for anything embarrassingly amateurish to get published nowadays, but it's certainly not impossible. I can't really badmouth the book until I've read it, though.

[info]faerie_writer

August 15 2005, 23:33:09 UTC 6 years ago

I started readed that 'Prophecy of the Stones' book one day at the book store, and I couldn't get past the second chapter. I was acutely aware that a professional writer had *not* written it. I felt that way with 'Eragon' too (though not quite as bad). The teen writers that I've read that I really like (so far) are Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and Catherine Webb. I never felt like an amateur had written their books.

[info]marykuna

August 19 2005, 00:59:12 UTC 6 years ago

I read Demon in My View a few years ago, and I HATED it. It is such a HORRIBLE book. So I assumed all her books sucked, until I read In the Forests of the Night this winter. I didn't like it a whole lot, but it didn't suck. So I am attributing the horribleness of Demon in My View to sophomore slump, and I am going to read some of her more recent novels, because I think I might like them.

I own a copy of Eragon and may actually read it someday.

I really liked the first, say, 85% of Doormat by Kelly McWilliams, and then the end got strange; it was like she skipped over the climax and then afterward told us what was supposed to have happened there. I don't know if this description makes any sense to you, but neither does the end of that book. Most of it was really good, though, and I want to read her next book.
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