Much of what has appeared in this blog over the years has been how-to for writers and would-be writers. Those posts have been gathered, reconsidered, sometimes condensed, sometimes expanded, and placed between the virtual covers of two books.

The first book, Learning from the Masters, is a compilation of some of the things I have learned from a lifetime of reading. It is partly a thank you to those who came before me, and it could form a long, annotated to-read list. You could do worse than to look up these old guys (and gals) as your next reads. There is a note below that will tell you more. Learning from the Masters is scheduled for release on March 17, 2027, a little less than a year from now.

The second book, So You Want to Write Science Fiction, is more personal, primarily consisting of things I have learned myself through fifty-plus years on the edge of the publishing industry. It is due for release on July 7, 2027. There will be a heads-up like this one on July 8th of this year to remind you.

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What follows here is a note I wrote a few months ago, for inclusion at the beginning of Learning from the Masters. If you were born after 1990, this note is for you.

This book is called Learning from the Masters. You don’t get to be a Master overnight. Even if your first book is a masterpiece, it will probably be decades before they call you a Master.

Most (not all) of the Masters in this book are dead. That doesn’t make them obsolete. Even if you are reading this on your smart phone, you should remember that these visionaries were the primary builders of the world that made that smart phone possible. Even though they lived in your past, their minds lived in the future. Most of what they envisioned is yet to come — unless one of the violent ends to modern culture that they also envisioned happens first.

When they wrote is less important than what they wrote.

There are Masters at work today, and many of them have already been anointed with that title. Some will still be called Masters by your children; some will be forgotten. A few of them are in this book, but the bulk of those I have included are the Masters who helped form my writing life.

My early life was lived with one foot in the past and one foot in the future. I was born in 1947 — a little closer to 1900 than to 2000, and much closer to 1900 than to the publication date of Learning from the Masters..

When I was thirteen, standing in the dairy barn, shoveling cow manure out the door, my soul wasn’t grounded in the muck at my feet. It was riding a multi-colored variform horse across the plains of Arzor in memory of the Andre Norton novel I had been reading the night before. Or it was on the way to the outer planets with the family Stone in a novel written by Heinlein

The Masters in this book, no matter what era they were writing in, faced the same challenges that writers face today. Plot, characterization, backstory, readership, changing tastes, censorship, publication and how to attain it — the questions never change, although the answers often do.

If you are a writer, or want to be — and why would you read this book (or this blog) if you didn’t — these men (and a few women) faced the same challenges you are facing now. Shouldn’t you be . . .

Learning from the Masters

Due for release on March 17, 2027.