{"id":1509,"date":"2017-04-20T11:10:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T11:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/?p=1509"},"modified":"2017-04-20T11:10:07","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T11:10:07","slug":"blog-february-to-april-2017-on-climbing-the-jacobean-ladder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/?p=1509","title":{"rendered":"Blog: February to April 2017: On Climbing the Jacob&#8217;s Ladder of Writing&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Well, I\u2019m finally a full member of the <em>Science Fiction Writers of America<\/em>, having had three recognised \u2018pro sales\u2019 confirmed with them. Woo-hoo! But, beyond the sense of celebration, it\u2019s got me thinking about when is one ever \u2018successful\u2019 \u2013 when does one \u2018arrive\u2019 as an author?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had an interesting twitter exchange some months back with <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cathellisen.com\/\">Cat<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cathellisen.com\/\"> Hellisen<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/bomoko.net\/\">Blaize Kaye<\/a> on this. <strong>Blaize<\/strong> was (understandably) under the misapprehension that given we had been variously published, both <strong>Cat<\/strong> and I had \u2018arrived\u2019 in some science-fictional sense. <strong>Cat<\/strong> put him right: \u2018<em>every rung you climb, the ladder grows higher. Trust me on this.<\/em>\u2019 And so it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m a rung higher, given my <em>SFWA<\/em> move, but I still cannot see the top. Where are we going? Why do we do this \u2013 why keep writing? When have we \u2018arrived\u2019? When do we stop?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had a discussion with <strong>David Winter<\/strong> some years back on this &#8211; he was my \u2018Boss\u2019 at the time on the <em>University of Hertfordshire\u2019s D.Clin.Psy<\/em>. Training Programme. <strong>David<\/strong> is a preeminent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centrepcp.co.uk\/whatis.htm\"><em>Personal Construct Psychology<\/em><\/a> researcher &#8211; I see from his latest research profile he has 168 publications <a href=\"http:\/\/researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk\/portal\/en\/persons\/david-winter(45deb2d5-a349-444f-97d4-26b1a2f1646f)\/publications.html?page=1\">listed<\/a> on his UH page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>David<\/strong> says he believes we all write for \u2018<em>immortality<\/em>\u2019 \u2013 to be remembered after we die, to leave something of ourselves indelibly imprinted on the world. There may be some truth in that, but I want to do more \u2013 I want to fucking change the world, to make it a better place for the 100% not the 1% &#8211; and not just us, but all our (fewer remaining) fellow animals too! Now that\u2019s a massive agenda and not likely to be met in my lifetime, which means I will just have to keep writing while I can, because with that plan, I will <strong>never<\/strong> \u2018arrive\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To each and all of our long, writing journeys then\u2026and for a better, fairer world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And kudos to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/ryman_geoff\">Geoff Ryman<\/a> for winning the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bsfa.co.uk\/bsfa-awards-2016-winners-announced\/\">2016 BSFA Prize<\/a> for his own journey outlining <a href=\"http:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/100-african-writers-of-sff\/\">100 African SFF<\/a> writing journeys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for me, one rung at a time. Somewhere, up there, is Heaven! Or, if not, a final rest, at the very least\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nick Wood<\/em><br\/><strong>April 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, I\u2019m finally a full member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, having had three recognised \u2018pro sales\u2019 confirmed with them. Woo-hoo! But, beyond the sense of celebration, it\u2019s got me thinking about when is one ever \u2018successful\u2019 \u2013 when does one \u2018arrive\u2019 as an author? I had an interesting twitter exchange some months [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017blogs","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickwood.frogwrite.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}