Dragon Award loser John Scalzi has come down with writer’s block. The cause of the Tor author’s affliction? President Donald Trump and the weather:
I started Head On in January with the plan to be done in the first half of the year, to leave the rest of the year open for other projects, including getting a head start on the next book in the Interdependency series. And here we are in October and I’m still not done, and generally speaking I’ve been lucky if I’ve gotten a few hundred usable words out of a writing day. I have never had as hard a time writing a novel as I have had with this one.
A daily word count measuring in the hundreds definitely falls short of Pulp Speed. You might point out that Scalzi, as a high midlist tradpub author, can take a more leisurely pace. You’d be right, but the tradpub gravy train won’t go on forever, and all signs point to the ride ending soon.
I’m not trying to be mysterious about what it is about 2017 that is different. The answer is obvious: Trump is president, and he’s a peevish bigoted incompetent surrounded by the same, and he’s wreaking havoc on large stretches of the American experience, both in his own person and by the chaos he invites. But to say “well, Trump,” is not really to give an answer with regard to what’s different. We’ve had terrible presidents before — George W. Bush springs to mind — and yet my ability to create work was not notably impacted. When Dubya was in office I wrote five novels. The Dubya era was a crappy time for America (recall the wars and the Great Recession) but from the point of view of productivity, it was just fine for me.
The thing is, the Trump era is a different kind of awful. It is, bluntly, unremitting awfulness. The man has been in office for nine months at this point and there is rarely a week or month where things have not been historically crappy, a feculent stew of Trump’s shittiness as a human and as a president, his epically corrupt and immoral administration, and the rise of worse elements of America finally feeling free to say, hey, in fact, they do hate Jews and gays and brown people. Maybe other people can focus when Shitty America is large and in charge, but I’m finding it difficult to do.
Here’s one way to put it: Twelve years ago, when Hurricane Katrina hit and the US Government flubbed its response and hundreds died, I was so angry and upset that I almost vomited in sadness and anger. It’s not an exaggeration, by the way — I literally felt like throwing up for a couple days straight. I eventually had to write “Being Poor” because it was either do that or go crazy. That was a week of feeling generally awful, and it wrecked me for another week after that. It took two weeks for me to get back on track with the novel I was writing at the time.
Got it? Okay, listen: 2017 has been me feeling like I felt when Katrina hit every single fucking month of this year.
Scalzi’s “the dog ate my homework” post is yet another indication that #1 selling indie author Nick Cole is about to be vindicated once more. To quote Nick:
Okay. As I’ve talked about before this before… this is what happens next:
- Big Pub reduces its Author List down to servicing Cadillac Clients. Many authors who think they’re something are about to be shown the door in the form of un-returned emails, unanswered calls, and not talk of future projects. Already happening.
- Amazon Opens Book Stores.
- Trad Pub Authors attempt to seamlessly bring themselves ,and their Mojo, into Amazon and fail badly because they’re not use to the volume of work. Marketing, Formatting, Editing, Social Media, and most importantly now: A tight release schedule of every 30-90 days. Also Amazon picks the winners and its more interested in New Talent.
A cataclysmic paradigm shift is underway that will soon overturn the publishing landscape as we know it. Indie has been overtaking tradpub for years, and now the Big Five New York publishers’ sole advantage–their paper distribution monopoly–is about to collapse.
When B&N goes, it will take the tradpub midlist with it. You’ll know the old era is over when current tradpub authors start trying to go indie. But as Nick forecasts and Scalzi confirms, former tradpub darlings are woefully unprepared to handle the increased workload.
And that’s just on the writing front. Factor in the additional responsibilities of being your own publisher and marketing department, and consider how a guy who can’t finish a novel in ten months with the backing of sci-fi’s biggest publisher will fare in the new order.
Here’s the truth: Scalzi’s ongoing nosedive has nothing to do with who’s president or the current weather. It has everything to do with the fact that Patrick Nielsen Hayden handed him a golden ticket. Scalzi has never had to work in this business without Tor propping up his career. Now he’s losing favor to N.K. Jemisin, his last book underperformed, and he’s falling behind on his contract–all in the looming shadow of B&N’s failure.
Will Scalzi make the cut as one of Tor Books’ “Cadillac Clients”? His odds would improve if he could overcome the pressure and catch up on his contracted books, yet that same sword of Damocles is what’s generating the pressure. I don’t envy him. Then again, he’s shown a marked talent for landing on his feet. Time will tell if Scalzi and other tradpub authors can adapt to the new market.
The paroxysms shaking tradpub make me glad I jumped off the submissions carousel and went indie. You can get my captivating Soul Cycle series–including Dragon Award winner Souldancer–for Kindle and in paperback.
