I’m not your average writer. I have a family history in writing as you all know. That got me a lot of early exposure to the whole publishing industry. As such, my experience is definitely different than what the average starving writer will find.That said, here it is:

I was first approached by Bill Fawcett. Bill worked with Mayfair Games at the time. Mayfair Games wanted to do The Dragonriders of Pern boardgame. Mum appointed me as her liaison on the matter seeing as I had been playing boardgames, RPG, and computer games for ages. In addition to consulting on the game, I also wrote the Threadfighting Tactics on Pern section (as Todd Johnson) which was later incorporated into The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern.

At about the same time, my friends Diane Duane and Brynne Chandler were working on animated series, Dinosaucers for DIC and they encouraged me to submit some story ideas. My best idea was too close to one they had already so they let me write a script from someone’s story idea.

Bill tapped me to write one of his Combat Command books based on David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers series and then later to write some mil-sf short stories, including some Bolo stories.

Around about that time the editor at Del Rey asked me to write a “sort of scrapbook” about Mum partly to prevent Mum from writing her autobiography instead of more Pern books. That was Dragonholder. The editor had also pitched it to me that someone ought to continue Mum’s legacy when she was no longer able. At the time I had misgivings and no story ideas.

Then, one night, I woke up with a dream, a very bad poem — and the outline for Dragonsblood.

It was then that I decided to get an agent. So I called Don Maass, whom I knew represented Diane Duane and several other authors I liked, and who had always been available and approachable at conventions.

Don got me to pitch him the whole concept over the phone (I was drenched in sweat when I was done — pitching a story over the phone is tough work) and then told me to write up the outline and send it to him. And that’s how Dragonsblood was born.

So, knowing my experiences, if you are still interested in my advice, I’d say that you would probably want to get an agent.

Nowadays there aren’t that many publishing firms which take unsolicited and/or unagented manuscripts. Getting an agent should hopefully mean that you’ll get a lot of valuable advice and not get your manuscript in front of a publisher until the agent thinks it’s got a chance.

I would also say don’t try getting an agent until you’ve finished your second book.

If you’ve only written one book, you probably don’t have a saleable product. Also, if you haven’t written two books you don’t know yourself if you really want to be a writer or if you just want to say that you’re a writer.

With two books, you can show an agent that you’ve got the potential to do more work — and that you really can complete something. You’ll also find that your second book is way better than your first book. If you don’t find that, then do some serious thinking.

A writer has to challenge herself to get better every time she writes a book (I’ve just suddenly decided that since the breakdown in the species is 51% female and 49% male, that women are in the majority and I should use female pronouns from now on (someone ought to see how long I stick with this)).

Well, I usually go for music I know very well. Often I go with instrumental music, particularly Tangerine Dream, sometimes Jean-Michel Jarre, and less often Fresh Aire (I find it’s easier to do drawings with Fresh Aire).Music with a great dynamic range (between soft and loud) is harder to use at Starbucks but I often use it at home (on headphones again).

Music I know well, even vocals, I can work with.

I listen to Yes, New Radicals, Stone Roses, Mike Oldfield, Michelle Branch, Vanessa Carlton, Beethoven, Dvorak, Tschaichovsky, Mike Oldfield, Holst’s “The Planets” (particularly Jupiter), The Cranberries, The Goo Goo Dolls, and The Beatles.

One of my unpublished books had a song list but none of them have theme songs.

Yes. A much longer answer:

Louis L’Amour, who wrote westerns the way Heinlein wrote s-f juveniles, used to boast that he could write anywhere.

I took this as a challenge and tried to do the same.

I’ve now found that I prefer to spend at least part of my day in a coffee shop (Starbucks) in the company of other people.

I used to use a library but they don’t serve cool coffee.

The energy of people around, the ability to take a quick reality break, are both very useful for me.

However, some conversations and the Starbucks muzak can be too much for me, so I usually slip on my own headphones and listen to something instrumental, mostly Tangerine Dream (occasionally, Fresh Aire).

I don’t. I usually do both those things, get very mad with myself, discover that there was a reason for doing what I’d done, and get back on track. There are many schools of thought on what makes a writer but one says that writing is letting your “inner child” out to doodle. If that school of thought is correct, then there will be times when you just have to let your creative self doodle and wait patiently for good stuff to come.I remember when I was working in software there was this tremendous pressure to produce. “Be creative!” management would shout. How can you be creative? It’s a state of mind, not something that is turned on or off at will.