Writer's blog

A Writer's Weblog

I've been writing for my supper for 30 years, but the Internet has changed the dynamics of writing for a living.

I'm currently writing online fulltime, but I've been through the gamut of writer's life job choices: teaching and writing, fulltime freelancing, editing and writing, photography and writing and more. My odd jobs look great on a book jacket. This new medium has pumped new life into the writing profession, but one of the unusual aspects of cyberpsychology, is that giving away work is a key to getting work.

It seems wrong to many writers who already have enough trouble with people wanting them to work for free or very near it.

Yet many of today's savvy successful writers are giving away work on the Net.

Bruce Sterling, cyberpunk guru, has been posting work online for years, starting with his Hacker Crackdown, columns from magazines, and manifestos. Sterling, who was a classmate of mine at the 1974 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop taught by SF pros, helped create a few early alleyways in this city of bits we all inhabit now.

You can find his stuff here: Bruce Sterling on the Web

This is a first entry as I set up this blog, and I'll be adding links to Web sites and further comments shortly.