How Being Social Helps Me as a Writer and Editor

Okay, first: TO BE A WRITER, ONE MUST WRITE.

To which I will add: TO IMPROVE AS A WRITER, ONE MUST LEARN AND PRACTICE.

However! There's a social element that has been helping to get my work published, and it's gotten me a job as an anthology editor, and I'm going to talk about that.

In a widely used and respected personality test (free to take here), I come out as an ENFJ (Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging), which clearly affects the way that I work. I'm not even the biggest extravert in the world, especially not relative to the general pool of Americans, but relative to groups of mostly-introverted writers, I end up looking super-social. This explains the number of people I'm connected with on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. I just love 'em. Bring on the people!

This might seem a little frivolous, but consider what it's brought me:

I was invited to submit a story for an anthology, when I had never been published before, on the basis of a five-minute conversation that wasn't even about writing, because I introduced myself to an author on a convention panel and complimented the awesome title of his book, and gave him my card. He put me on an invitation list. I wrote and submitted a story, and it became my first published story.

I was asked to write a book review for a magazine, which was later published in that magazine, because I spent four hours working at a convention party (and I also received an awesome t-shirt for that).

I became a slush reader for Clarkesworld Magazine partially because of a recommendation from an editor I had met at a convention, and the slush reading experience improved me as a writer and also gave me the experience to become a short-story editor.

I have evaluated a novel manuscript for an agent I know in the UK, because of work that I did for him on a book he was writing when I met him, which was before he even became an agent.

I was asked to contribute an interview for Writers Workshop of Science Fiction and Fantasy during a ten-minute conversation at a convention, which led me to interview my favorite author, Tim Powers (who, by the way, I had already met at a convention).

I've been invited to submit stories for six other anthologies as a result of meeting editors and a publisher at conventions, and three of those were accepted for the books. One of the ones that wasn't accepted for its anthology went on to make me a semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest. I would not have written any of these stories, or my first published one, without the guidelines given to me for the anthologies.

Knowing that publisher I met made it easy to apply knowledge gained from an editor I had met, and turn my anthology proposal into a real project. All of the authors who have submitted stories for What Fates Impose are people I've met, or I've interacted with online, or have been recommended to me by people I've met.

Okay? So in every case listed above, I actually did the work. I wrote the stories and the review, set up and conducted the interview, read the slush, and volunteered my time and effort to help people in a variety of ways. But none of those opportunities would have been there for me if I hadn't shown up at conventions, introduced myself to people, genuinely liked those people, and continued to pay attention to what they were doing online even when I couldn't see them in person. I was doing these things before anything of mine was published, and I'll continue to do them because I would definitely do the same things just for fun, even if I didn't expect to get anything else back from it at all. But the honest truth is that I have the start of a career because of being friendly and interested in people.

Coming soon: How I Learned to Be Social Despite Having Introverted Parents

My CapriCon Schedule

Here's a lot of what I'll be up to for the weekend of February 9th to the 12th, at CapriCon! Note that I will be on panels with Cory Doctorow, Gene Wolfe, and many other excellent writers! If you're within reach of the Chicago area, why not stop by?

Retro-futurism Sure Beats the Boring Truth! - Thursday, 02-09-2012 - 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm - Birch B

A celebration of looking backwards to look forwards. Steampunk, the Jetsons, and NASA all had cooler ideas about how the future looked than it really did. Why is our imagined future so much hipper than the one we live in?

Tim Akers, Kerri-Ellen Kelly, Nayad Monroe (M), W. A. (Bill) Thomasson, Michael Z. Williamson

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Dystopia Now - Thursday, 02-09-2012 - 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm - Botanic Garden A (Special Events - Programming)

The Dystopian sub-genre of Science Fiction has seen a resurgence over the last few years. Why does this bleak sub-genre remain so popular? What are the definitive dystopian works?

Cory Doctorow (M), Paul McComas, Nayad Monroe, Gene Wolfe

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You Are Not Alone: Writers Groups and Critique - Thursday, 02-09-2012 - 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm - Birch A

Many SF/F writers, from Asimov to Tolkien, have belonged to writers groups or benefited from critique partners. How do these groups help an author hone her craft? Some members of writers' groups discuss their experiences.

Tim Akers, Eileen Maksym (M), Nayad Monroe, Michael D. Thomas

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Reading: Nayad Monroe - Friday, 02-10-2012 - 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm - River C (Cafe)

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Religion in Worldbuilding - Friday, 02-10-2012 - 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm - Botanic Garden A (Special Events - Programming)

Authors too frequently just change around the fixtures on a real world religion and insert it into their fantasy world. These writers will talk about how they go about creating original religions, and how the use of religion can drive worldbuilding and shape the story's narrative.

Tim Akers (M), Alex Bledsoe, Phyllis Eisenstein, Nayad Monroe, Gene Wolfe

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Welcome to the Glamorous World of Writing - Saturday, 02-11-2012 - 11:30 am to 1:00 pm - Botanic Garden B (Special Events - Programming)

Every writer began in the same place with some ideas and a blank page or screen. In this panel, SF/F writers discuss their origins and give advice to people who are just beginning their journey in the glamorous world of writing.

Phyllis Eisenstein, Roland J. Green, E.E. Knight (M), Holly McDowell, Nayad Monroe

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The SF/F Short Fiction Club Scene - Saturday, 02-11-2012 - 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm - Botanic Garden B (Special Events - Programming)

The SF/F short fiction markets have been described by author Elizabeth Bear as a "club scene" where authors experiment and bat ideas back and forth. These SF/F professionals talk about the current state of the short fiction markets and some of the exciting things happening in the medium.

Richard Chwedyk, John Klima, Mary Anne Mohanraj (M), Nayad Monroe, John O'Neill, Lynne M. Thomas

Preparing for Convention Panels

So hey! I'm going to CapriCon next month; it'll be February 9th through the 12th. As of today the program is not up on the website, but I've received my preliminary schedule and it is AWESOME. And also a doozy. I'm not going to post my schedule until it's finalized, but it's an exciting one that includes a turn at moderating, appearing on several other panels, and doing a reading.

I like to be really prepared for panels. Not only do I hate not knowing what to say, I also do not want to be boring. The truth is that I've sat in the audience for many disappointing panels at conventions. I've seen ones where no one knew who the moderator was supposed to be, and that meant not much thought had gone into the questions asked by the insta-moderator brave enough to step in. I've seen ones where the people on the panel didn't have much to say about the topic, or what they did have to say didn't come out in a particularly animated manner. Most people I know who go on panels are anywhere from perfectly fine to absolutely brilliant, because, well, I'm not drawn to dull people. But there's always room to grow, right? Since I'm probably not the only writer in the world who's deathly afraid of room-wide silences, I'm posting some of the pre-panel things I do in the hope that they'll be useful for y'all.

So! What do I do to get myself ready to speak on a topic in public with other people who may know anywhere from nothing about it to practically everything about it? Here's a list.

1. First of all, I assess what I know about the topic. I don't tend to offer up my public-opinionating services for topics about which I know absolutely nothing, but sometimes I don't know as much as I'd like to know, and that means it's time to do some homework.

2. I do some basic internet research to find out more about the people who will be on the panel with me and what they might know about the topic. I also try to familiarize myself with the main concerns within the topic and look for things I can read about it that I haven't read before.

3. I look at how much time I have before the panel and choose which things I have time to read before it's showtime, and take lots of notes as I read them.

4. I think like a moderator and make a list of questions about the topic that I may or may not need to use, as well as thinking about my opinions on those, so that: a) I'll have things to say, and b) I could act as a moderator in case of an emergency. This is not so that I can try to dominate the panel and make it all about me; seriously, I just don't want to sit up there going, "Ummm, I don't really have an opinion about that..." while the audience stares and fidgets.

The great thing about doing this kind of preparation is that is cuts way back on my nervousness and allows me to be relatively comfortable and creative while I'm up there on display. I do a bigger version of this preparation when I'm the official moderator, since I want to be absolutely certain that there will be many questions for me to ask the panelists.

I would love to hear your opinions about convention panels, and anything you've done to prepare for them if you've been on them! Have I been missing something? I mean, other than having a beer before it starts.