The first writing I did was short short stories for a newspaper syndicate for which I was paid five dollars a piece on publication.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I got a couple of stories published, but the kind of money you were making for publishing a short story, I could see I wasn't going to make a living at it.
I started off as a journalist when I was young and I did not get paid unless I wrote three stories a day.
I wrote small stories here and there, then bigger ones. Some were even written for money. I signed up for a writing class and snuck my first assignment on a yellow legal pad in a partner's office while he read through my memo.
At 18, my first short story was published - I was paid a penny a word by a science fiction magazine. I continued to write, and five years later I published my first novel, 'Sweetwater.'
I think my first story sold for $550. This was in 1954, and it seemed like quite a lot of money, and I said to myself, 'Hey, I'm a professional writer now.'
I was a writer for hire. I wrote to pay the bills.
I think I made my first short fiction sale in 2005. I had been writing unsuccessfully before that.
I wrote a novel in my early twenties; I won a high school prize - my short story got published, and I got 50 dollars, which was a huge deal.
I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.
My first five novels were written longhand. So were hosts of short stories.