To Joe who is HARDCORE! Keep writing!

That’s what Brandon Sanderson wrote on my copy of Elantris which he signed today after class. Yay! The story, though, starts with the steel cage death match between him and the BYU English department that happened a couple of days ago…

I got the email on Tuesday, the day before it went down, but I was willing to drop everything and go see it.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a few old friends there–David Hulet, who’s student president of AML at BYU (we also served together in the same mission), and the wild and wacky Elliott King.

After a few lengthy introductions, the moderated started the discussion by saying “let’s start off by discussing the difference between literary, or serious fiction, and popular, or escapist fiction.” HAH!  What a set of loaded terms!

Brandon picked it up right away and argued against using those terms, then went in a little bit on how you do need to think at least partially like a businessman in order to make a living at writing.

And then the rest of the department surprised me…by basically siding with Brandon.

It did generate a lot of warm feelings, though.  Everyone immediately started up with “this debate has thrashed itself to death–literary fiction is not better than popular fiction, and it’s not genre-less,” etc etc.  Dean said that his blood boils every time someone starts up with this debate, because it’s really kind of pointless.  Literary fiction does its thing, and sf/f does its own thing.  Neither is necessarily better, and it’s silly for lit fic to pose as something better than the other stuff.

The moderator (sorry, didn’t catch her name–I actually don’t know the BYU English faculty that well) took the discussion in a slightly different direction by saying “yes, but what about the difference between writing what you love and writing what sells?  I think you should always write what you want to write at heart.”

Apparently, that’s another argument that’s got some heated positions.  Again, most of the faculty surprised me by not taking any extreme views.  They basically said that the two things aren’t necessarily opposed to each other.  Brandon said that if it came down to having to choose one or the other, it would be a very difficult choice for him, but so far people pay him to write what he loves to write.

We went on to a number of other topics, but the most significant one in my mind was about being a writer and supporting a family at the same time.  That was one of my questions.  I love to write, and I want to write professionally, but my family is ultimately more important to me, so how can one make a living, have a family, and write on the side?  How does it work?

The answer was very surprising to me.  Basically, the answer was that there is no answer–everyone is different, and you have to find what works for you.

But really, the thing that surprised me was that from what they said, I seem to have already found what works for me.  I’m doing it already.  Basically, it’s a matter of juggling your time and writing regularly.  And that’s what I’m doing.

So, basically, if I want to be a published author, I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.  That’s what I gather.

The faculty then went around and asked a question for us.  The question was: how do you manage to write when you find that you have writer’s block?  The question originated with one of the students, but the faculty bounced it back to us to see how things are going.

Various students mentioned how they have such and such of a writing group, or they spend a certain amount of time each day, etc.  I raised my hand and mentioned my goals, how I’m doing about 1,000 words a day, have a personal deadline, and blog about my progress so that my friends can keep me honest.  Basically, I just write at least 1,000 words a day, whether I feel like it or not, and things work out.

Well, the faculty members seemed quite impressed.  And after the salon was over, John Bennion, my old Eng 218 teacher, came up to me and said “you know, while you were talking about your writing, Brandon Sanderson turned to me and said ‘that kid is hardcore!'”

Wow!  I’m not even published or anything, and the author of Mistborn and The Well of Ascension, two of my favorite fantasy books, called me hardcore!  That’s like some kind of honor!

So then I brought a couple of unsigned books to class on Thursday and mentioned what John had said to me.  He said “Yeah, I said it because you are hardcore.” He then signed my copy of Elantris with “to Joe who is HARDCORE!  Keep writing!”

Yay!