All Kinds of Writing
At Pub Crawl, we naturally focus on writing and publishing novels, but of course there are plenty of other careers out there for writers. Before I started writing young adult books, I was exclusively focused on science fiction and fantasy short stories -- and I still manage to write at least a couple of those a year. Before short fiction, I was interested in writing screenplays and for television. Perhaps one day I will share my unproduced spec scripts for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Nickelodeon's CatDog: the first written works I completed, revised, and submitted. They were rejected, but they were important steps in building the discipline and persistence that serve writers so well.
Many working writers have a variety of projects; I'm currently freelancing, doing technical writing, marketing copy, blog posts, and articles while drafting my next book. My friends and colleagues write media tie-in novels for exciting properties like Star Trek and Star Wars, comic books for DC and Marvel, video games. I love writing YA, but it's hard not to dream about those possibilities and hope for chances to branch out too. Fortunately, proven success in one written format often leads to opportunities in other areas.
I love films and TV so much (too much, my wife might say, as she scrutinizes my video collection), I would still love to work in that world one day, from a writers room or perhaps through the pages of a tie-in novel or a web series. It would be great to write video game scripts, or provide some of the in-world text to flesh out the setting and history. I want to write plays, too, even though I have no idea what that involves! I know those industries are probably not as glamorous as they seem from the outside, but neither is writing novels (shocking, right?), and I want to write so many more of those as well: middle grade, adult, horror, literary... you name it.
I think wanting to write in all these different media is about the appeal of storytelling. My motivation is to entertain people, and writing more broadly is just a way of reaching bigger audiences and engaging with them differently. My work was inspired by TV and movies and cartoons as much as books, so of course I want to try telling stories more visually. In fact, it's all about trying something new, pushing out of the comfort zone, taking risks -- and bringing together my diverse passions and interests into one amazing job that feels more like fun than work.
So aside from novels, what else do you write, or what would you like to write one day? Tell us in the comments below. Assume that anything is possible, because it is!