First Book Friday: Stephen Leigh

[jimhines]

Welcome to First Day Friday! For anyone new to this feature, I’ve posted submission guidelines and an index of previous authors.

Stephen Leigh (also known as Matthew and S. L. Farrell) is one of the nicest authors I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, which left me in a bit of a dilemma. I could write him a straightforward, flattering introduction,

Comments

[jimhines]

I do NOT want to know what you were scribbling with...

[martianmooncrab]

thanks for the post, I had missed seeing his books out there and now have need to see what else I have missed of his. (under the other names)

[mtlawson]

Thanks for sharing!

Also nice to see another long time D&D player hanging around, although in my case I was a wee bit younger than you were at that time, as in not-old-enough-for-high-school young.

[mtlawson]

Yeah, DM-ing is a huge time sink. I'm seriously impressed that you kept all of those things (DM-ing, writing, work, etc.) going.

[deborahjross]

I remember that conventional wisdom: short stories --> novel --> getting an agent ---> first novel sale.

And since then, I've had the honor to become friends with amazing, wonderful writers who are natural novelists. Writing short fiction is excruciating for them. The Idea Fairy simply doesn't leave packets in anything less than 100,000 word lengths for them.

Hooray for you for following your muse to -- er, larger pastures.

[jimhines]

Yeah, these days that short story prerequisite rule has been pretty much busted :-)

[mtlawson]

/cough

Gee, I had no idea that data was out there... ;-)

[comrade_cat]

Jim, how do you feel about Kristine Kathryn Rusch's series of articles on why agents are no longer necessary (as long as you actually read your contract, presumably, which I'm sure she recommends)?