Fiction Scribe

This past Sunday I had the honor of having a fabulous brunch with Dr. Gillian Polack of Food History (whom I have interviewed in the past). She was in Melbourne for a writer’s convention and had just enough time to squeeze in a casual meeting with Mr. Scribe and me.

The food and conversation were both fabulous. Sometimes I become entirely too focused on the isolation aspect of being a writer I forget how fun and exciting it can be to talk to other writers. In talking with Gillian, the pleasure was two-fold in that not only was she a fellow writer, but she is one quite familiar with the inner workings of the industry.

When it comes to being a writer, there isn’t a straight line of submit, publish, become famous. As Gillian pointed out during out conversation, a lot of authors use short stories as a method of keeping their names out there between books.

Like many things in life, writing is about networking. You want to get your name out there, show you’re versatile (and you thought I did weeklies, interviews, and pillar articles on whims) by demonstrating all your skills, and make connections.

While I would have loved to meet Gillian if I were a journalist with a sports column, meeting her was a natural progression of events.

Have you ever played the game six degrees? If you haven’t, it’s also a bit of a theory, too. You take two seemingly unrelated people or things, and connect them. The concept of a friend who has a friend who is the cousin to the best friend of someone famous.

I know Chrispian who hired me to work at 451press, where I met Gillian, who introduced me to Australian authors like Wendy J. Dunn, Kaaron Warren, and Tansy Roberts. Wendy, Kaaron, and Tansy also know other people in the business…

Do you see what I’m getting at?

As much hard work or as mysterious as the concept of networking may be, it will make your life a lot easier if you can talk to an agent face-to-face because you’re a friend of his/her cousin than to go in on anything ‘cold turkey.’

I don’t by any means mean to say meeting other writers should be used for networking purposes only. As I’ve mentioned, writing can be a bit isolating at times. Getting out and networking a bit can also help in that you get to talk to people who are at least somewhat familiar with what you do and what it’s like.

So get your name out there! Make some contacts, interview some people, ask to review books, blogs, and websites, and make yourself known. Network to help get you to where you want to be.

More non-networking benefits of talking to other writers and more about meeting Gillian to come tomorrow.