THE PROS AND CONS OF BEING A HACK

(with apologies to Russell Blackford and Alan Dean Foster)

by Sean Williams

"The most precious thing in speech are pauses." Sir Ralph Richardson

I've been agonising over this speech for weeks. It took me a while to work out why. Normally I'd be addressing a group of non-SF-reading people, so I'd talk about what the genre is and why I think it's important. Here, obviously, I can't do that. Most of you know more about it than I do.

Talking about writing isn't an option either, for the same reasons. How could I do so with Stephen Dedman, Jack Dann, Janeen Webb, Janny Wurts, Dave Luckett, etc in the room? It's going to take more than a couple of books to change the feeling of being a newbie in such company -- indeed, part of me hopes it never goes away entirely, for the day I stop looking for things to learn from my peers and probable betters, that's the day I'll stop writing forever. Or at least stop writing well.

So that was my problem. If you take the 'science fiction' and 'writing' out of the equation, I've got bugger-all left to show for the last decade.

Eventually I decided on something that allows me to plug the collection of my short fiction Russell has so kindly put together [New Adventures in Sci-Fi]. If you read the opening paragraphs of the introduction (after buying a copy, of course), you'll notice that Russell Blackford accuses me of a terrible thing. He implies that I'm happy "play[ing] "the role of a commercial hack". It's not the word 'hack' that bothers me; it's the assumption that I'm only playing at being one.

*

I am a hack, and proud of it.

Now, I haven't known this forever. The realisation took its own sweet time coming. Sometimes things happen and you just know it's right, but I had to go through a lengthy, and boring, process of working out what I wanted to do with my life. Once, I was going to be an archaeologist. Then, a musician. For a while, I toyed with being an accountant, but that was a complete disaster.

[Footnote: To anyone unsure of what direction to take in their lives, I offer this advice: begin a bachelor degree in economics. I did, and I bombed out in third year, as everyone does -- and I'm sure that's the way it's supposed to work. Economics may not be what you want to do, but it will sure as hell help you realise what don't want to do. And if Economics does in fact turn out to be your thing, well, God help you.]

It took me until 1989 to look seriously at all the things I enjoyed doing, and realised that I'd been a writer most of my life. I still have my grade 5 creative writing book in which my favourite teacher, Ms Goldsworthy, gave me my first review, saying that my story, "Battle In Space", was "excellent". (If only she was reviewing for the Adelaide Advertiser.) In the years leading up to 1989, I finished four novels in my spare time that will never see the light of day. I wrote them for fun, to give me something to do in my spare time. I was writing because that was what I enjoyed doing. It took me over twenty years to realise how important it was.

Instead of working hard at a job I hated in order to afford the things I wanted to do in my shrinking leisure hours, why didn't I do something I enjoyed as a job? Then, when I had spare time, I could do even more stuff I enjoyed. If I made writing my thing, how could I lose?

Well, it sounded good in theory. No-one had told me about the 70-hour weeks at that point. But I knew that I had to work hard because, otherwise, how would I get anywhere? Plenty of people want to be writers, but few of them are. Why is that? Because the market is tough, and when you start writing you know nothing. It's not something you can learn at school, although some correspondence course people disagree, and it's not something you can learn by sitting around thinking about it.

Luckily for me, I came across two pieces of advice that helped me along my way. I can't recall where the first one came from, but it went: "If you want to be a writer, sit down and write one million words. By the end of it, you might be starting to get good." A million words sounded like a lot to me at the start, and it is. It's about ten average novels, or an awful lot of short stories. The only way I'd reach it, I knew, was to start and keep going. If the first stories were awful, well, maybe I'd improve around the million-word-mark. And if I didn't improve, well, I would give up.

The other advice was from Locus' Charlie Brown, who addressed a bunch of new writers at the 1994 Writers of the Future workshop in LA. Although I'd been writing for about three years, by then, and had reached maybe half a million words, I was still green. The advice he gave us budding writers was to give up now to save years of frustration and heartbreak. Go out and get a life, he told us, for the sake of your family and friends. No matter how hard you try, you're not going to make it -- so why torment yourself? Get a haircut and get a real job, basically.

These two insights -- that improvement only comes from plodding, slightly insane persistence, and that ultimately I won't get anywhere anyway -- have kept me going for years. I wouldn't be where I am now without them.

*

But that still doesn't explain why I call myself a hack. The reason is simple: ever since I started, I was aware of the commercial aspect of my work. If I was going to do this for a living, I had to end up earning some money from it, or what would sort of life would that be?

Over the years, I've met a few writers, and I've found most of them a little reluctant to talk about this side of their work. Especially writers of 'literature'. The talk is always on the Art of it all, the inspiration, all that stuff. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but it has to be balanced, I think, by a hefty dollop of pragmatism. That's why in 1992 I was deeply terrified that I didn't have an idea for a novel that might sell. One came eventually, but before it did things looked pretty perilous. Without selling novels I'd end up like Howard Waldrop -- and as much as I admire his Art, I have no intention of living like he does.

When I explained this to a friend of mine, a certain editor of a certain Perth magazine, he remarked that I was "Australia's answer to Alan Dean Foster". For about a second, I found this comment to be slightly dismissive -- but then what my friend meant truly sunk in. I like some of Alan Dean Foster's work -- particularly his early film adaptations like The Thing and Alien -- but most of all I admire his career. He has attained something I aspire to -- which is longevity. How long as he been at it now? Thirty years? More? I can only assume he's still out there somewhere, working his arse off on some new book, keeping his head above water financially speaking, and having a jolly old time.

Mind you, I say this having never exchanged a single word with him or anyone who knows him, and I've never gone to the trouble to find out what his bank account's like. But he has certainly been writing for decades, now. Would he do that if he was starving the whole time? I don't think so. Would he do it if he didn't enjoy what he was writing? Again, I don't think so. He has, therefore, in my opinion, achieved every goal I've set out to achieve.

*

I've tried to look for another word to describe myself, since 'hack' reflects badly on good ol' Alan. One that springs to mind is 'hedonist'. Hedonism, in the ethical sense, is defined as: 'the doctrine that the pursuit of pleasure is the highest good'. Hedonism gets a bad name from stiff-necked conservatives who think it's all drugs and orgies (or SwanCons). But surely one can enjoy something and still call it work? One can obtain pleasure from one's living, can't one? Indeed, if I were king, I'd go so far as to make it a basic human right to enjoy one's profession -- to be given every assistance in order to find the thing that will be your true vocation for a year, a decade, a century -- a lifetime. If we are to be judged by our deeds, then we should make every effort to ensure that our deeds are worthy of being judged -- and not a series of episodes in 9-5/five days a week clerical drudgery (unless that's what you want).

Saying that I enjoy my work, and that my work is writing, may take some of the mythical edge off the profession -- but that, I think, can only be a good thing. It's no more rewarding a job, to someone who enjoys it, as computer programming, or race-car driving, or hairdressing. And being a hack certainly isn't all chocolate and kisses. I could say that finding my Inner Hack was almost as hard as writing this speech -- but if I did, it would be a lie. (The speech was much harder.)

There are certain hard facts that have to be faced. Sometimes on a daily basis.

(1)

One is that I'm a professional writer. I have been since 1990, even though back then I wasn't making a cent. It wasn't a hobby, or something I hoped to be one day. I had to go for it, and treat the idea very seriously. One day (went the plan) I would come up with goods enough to prove that I had made the right choice -- and make money from it. If I didn't manage to do that ... well, that was a possibility I gave myself ten years to face. If, in the year 2000, I hadn't sold a novel, then the chances of me ever doing so were pretty slim, and so I swore that I would seek an alternate vocation. It simply had to be faced: that not making a living from writing would inevitably erode the life I wanted to live. Being poor and still an amateur for the rest of my life simply wouldn't suffice -- even though being a poor professional sometimes doesn't feel much better.

Luckily, I got over that hurdle, and these days I spend much of my time juggling time. I may have ten ideas I want to work on: the one I ultimately choose will be the one that stands to give me the best mix of enjoyment and money. Here my economics training isn't entirely wasted: the economic cost of labouring for ten years on a work of pure, self-indulgent love that might never sell is simply too high. Better to write a good book a year to cater to a known market than to gamble all on one potential masterwork, and starve in the making of it. The bottom line has to be taken into consideration -- and that, in part, is also why I write relatively few short stories these days.

This may sound like selling out, but I don't think that's a fair criticism. I wrote The Unknown Soldier, a trashy space opera novel set in a gaming universe invented by someone else, not for the money (what little of it there was), but because I love this sort of fiction. The resemblance to Blakes' 7 is a conscious one; I grew up on crap like this and Shane Dix and I enjoyed emulating it. It was also too good an opportunity to turn down: how many new writers, after all, are asked by a publisher to write a novel? Ignoring a chance like that would be practically begging to fail.

The same with Metal Fatigue and its reference to dumb Hollywood sci-fi movies. The Resurrected Man sprang in part from my other love of detective fiction. The Evergence books are space opera, again, and the fantasy series I'm working towards at the moment has links to my childhood reading of Susan Cooper and Alan Garner. All of these books reflect my personal passions, but all of them have proven to be, in one way or another, justifiable in personal and professional senses. And why shouldn't they be? The stereotype of the writer starving for his or her art is, I'm sure, propagated by the publishing industry, which is ever keen to reduce royalties and thereby reduce their overheads.

Every story I've written has come from part of me that really wanted to write it. That may sound dumb or simplistic, but it's true. I simply couldn't do it without enjoyment on some level, just as one can't do anything enjoyable full-time without making some money out of it. There's room for both. It's that balance I strive for.

(2)

The second hard fact I have to face is what sort of writer I am.

It may sound like I'm joking about being hack, but I am in fact deadly serious. Worse: I'm a sci-fi writin' hack. I'm not pushing any boundaries; I'm not seeking to revolutionise anything; I'm not intending to take any serious risks. I'm under no illusions. I just want to do my job as well as I can -- and part of that includes submitting my ms to my publisher on time, which, if I took the effort to make it word-perfect and timeless, would never happen.

There is, inevitably, an element of compromise to, and a drive to efficiency in, any profession. Writing should be no different. I do take pride in my work. If I touch a reader, I'm glad. If they come back to be touched again, I'm even more glad. And just because I'm not aspiring to literary greatness doesn't mean I'm not aspiring to anything. I'm always trying to better myself -- be it in the fields of characterisation, plot, scene-setting, or whatever. There's always room for improvement. Maybe one day I will reach a level where I can feel -- rightly or wrongly -- that any improvement is unlikely, no matter how much harder I try.

But I'm not thinking much about that when I'm actually writing. I'm just doing something I enjoy -- or aspiring towards that enjoyment, at least -- and hoping the rest of the world will let me do it. The last part of that sentence is contingent to a certain extent on how business-like I conduct myself with editors, agents and the public, so that has to be part of my job too. If I ignore the market and everyone working in it, then I won't be doing this for very long.

(3)

The third hard fact is that I can't wait around for me to want to do it. If the 'writing' part of being a professional writer is the fun bit, the 'professional' part can be a real downer.

Early on, before I had a contract, I was terrified of hitting that ten-year deadline and having nothing to show for it. I didn't want to give up, so I worked like a madman to avoid having to do that. Later, after Metal Fatigue when still nothing was guaranteed, the greatest stress, the greatest insecurity, came from the thought that the bubble might burst and I'd have to start over elsewhere. Even today, now that I have contracts, that fear is still there. I can't afford to wait around for inspiration. I have editors to impress and contracts to meet. If there's writing to be done I have to do it, even if I'm tired, or the idea has gone from blinding white-hot inspiration to something so boring or flawed that I have no idea how I could've ever thought it worth pursuing.

Have I mentioned I'm a lazy person? I'm probably the laziest person I know. That was part of the problem with studying at university. Once the novelty wore off, there was nothing but drudgery to look forward to. I'm not talking just about the novelty of being at uni, but of learning new things. Even the concepts underlying Economic theory are, in their own special way, quite interesting, and for the first year or so it wasn't too bad. But the deeper I got, the sillier it became, and the harder it was to keep up with the work.

[Footnote: Maybe that's the same with any field, though. Part of me dreams of a Generalist's degree, requiring the attendance of three full years' worth of first year subjects only. I salivate at the thought of learning all the basic principles -- of, say, Biology, Geology, old English Literature, or even Law -- without having to worry about the details. It doesn't seem fair that one can only achieve qualification by burrowing deep and losing sight of the Big Picture.]

But apart from that, I'm just plain lazy. If I don't want to do something, it's that much harder to do -- the same with anyone. But I suspect that a lot of artists are like me. In order to avoid doing jobs we don't really want to do, we'll dive into something we do enjoy and mutter about 'the flow' or 'inspiration' and 'needing isolation' to justify our decision. That's what it was for me, at first. I rationalised it by saying that there would be no half measures: if was going to give it a go, then it was an all or nothing attempt.

And so it continues to this day. The work is endless, and sometimes very frustrating, but I can't quit. I love it too much despite the work, even though I'm such a lazy person. That might make some sort of twisted writing junkie, but I can think of far worse ways to spend my time. And part of me suspects that this is how I know I'm getting somewhere, in the long run: if there was no resistance there'd be no progress. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel; if, one day, I become truly successful, then I can go back to being lazy again and catching up on all the books I've wanted to read in the last decade. Maybe ...

*

But I'm probably running a serious risk of over-rationalising, here. Perhaps the deepest truth is that I just plain like genre fiction so it's inevitable that I should make this choice, to be a hack, to emulate those authors who first inspired me.

"You are what you is", as Frank Zappa says -- or should that be "You are what you eat"? I've been devouring a diet of junk sf since a very early age, and some people might believe that, having been raised on a diet of crap, one should expect little less than that to emerge down the tracks.

But I do think that's simplistic. If life was really like that, I would've been a footballer like my father, or a farmer like just about everyone else I'm related to. I am deeply grateful -- not to the universe, or god, or fate; just to myself, and life -- that I will not, now, end up like my mother's father, Harold Schiller, who spent eighty years wanting to be a writer, and who died unfulfilled. I dedicated Metal Fatigue to him for that reason. Once my internal compass had found true north, all I had to do was let myself follow, and it was only a matter of time before I got there.

Wherever 'there' is. The sainted world of Hackdom, perhaps, in which writers have no shame.

I'm committed, now. I've made it far enough that to give up would be hard to justify. To give up now would throw away all the time and effort I've invested in it so far, just as I'm starting to reap some rewards (even though the palatial mansion in the Bahamas is still a long way away). Thinking of it as an investment is exactly what I try to do. The alternative -- thinking of it as studying for a post-doc year-in year-out without ever getting a degree -- is simply too depressing.

Ultimately I'm in this for the fun of it, and for the money. If I manage to skim a few fringe benefits of the top -- like meeting nice people and stuff -- then that makes it an even better bargain.