I'd actually be more curious to know how long it took most people to get published. That is, from the time they decided to pursue this crazy words-smith thing seriously.

That would be an excellent followup poll, actually. Remind me mid-week, if you don't see me do it.

Shall do!

Actually, someone did this very thing not too long ago. Thought it was Justine Larbalestier or Bear, but I can't for the life of me find the post.

http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2006/12/19/survey-how-many-novels-did-you-write-before-selling-one/

?

Or, maybe it was Toby Buckell...

Interesting. I wonder how I came across that post. I haven't been reading the blog since 2006.

As a '62er myself, I have found it interesting figuring out what generation I'm supposed to claim. Wallace, who coined GenX for himself was actually a couple months older than me. Yet most demographic things I've seen seem to say the baby boom ended sometime during '62 - and I'm near the end.

I suspect claiming to be a "GenX Baby Boomer" would be appropriate, if rather silly.

Born in 1962? Me, too! And we do, in fact, have our own generation: Gen Jones.

I was 41. I feel like such a slacker.

The tail end of the Boomer generation is now called something else, but I forgot what the name was.

"The Jones Generation"

I much prefer the "Don't Label Me, Damn it" Generation, myself.

(41 here also)

I presume you mean professionally published? If we're going for "in print", I was published at 8, but if you mean paid, appeared in a professional journal/anthology/novel, I was 16. My last fiction piece was purchased when I was 19, and all of my publishing creds in the 44 years since then have been non-fiction.

Edited at 2009-03-09 02:37 am (UTC)

Paid professional rate in newspaper: age 25
Genre published: age 35, after nine years
Pro genre published: age 38

Augh, the poll software reorders the answers to make a nice smooth curve, completely defeating the purpose of having them ordered differently in the first place!

Not sure if I can fix that, but I am going to try.

Does "professionally published" mean
- "SFWA professionally published"
- "someone paid me money to publish a story", or
- "someone published a story but I didn't get any $ for it"

Just wondering how I should answer the poll (or even answer it at all!)

- yeff

You're overthinking. Just answer the question. You may shop as usual. No need to return to your home.

Me? Overthinking something? Never :-)

poll answered, with first time someone gave me $ to publish a story.

The suggested "how long until you made a sale" poll will be very interesting...

*headwall* And now I notice this response. Forgive my nonsense downthread, Jay.

I was eight years old. The publication was a poem -- all about dewdrops and moonlight, as I [dimly] recall, and it appeared in a newspaper. That would have been in 1944.

22 years old. Story sold to Shimmer.

I was twelve. And I think I owe a lot of where I am today to it. I'd been writing for a long time and luckily went to a school system that was very encouraging and provided great resources. One year two college students showed up with an interesting independant study -- get the regional newspaper to give a weekly colum to a group of pre-teens to write about ... whatever. And so we interviewed judges, we interviewed people in drug rehab, we interviewed politicians and we wrote. I've never gotten tired of seeing my name in print and I think I can trace much of my success to that time.

Not counting a handful of pathetic attempts as a teen.

First pro sale F&SF after about four stories and seven or eight rejections to various markets (none F&SF). Nine months.

Gen X, both age wise and culturally.

First short story publication: age 32.
First novel publication: age 38.

I put my first professional sales at 54 to WotF and Ghosts at the Coast. First published in comics fandom at 16 -- both prose and graphic stories. Published in a Missouri-wide chapbook as part of "Missouri Youth Writes" at 18 -- that was a science fiction "story." Between 18-54 I wrote and submitted work (cartoons, poems, a few children's books, short stories) and finally hit the "big time" in 2005. I don't think you can pin-point a "literary generation." There will always be fine writers of any age publishing at various times of their lives for a myriad of reasons. I like to think that what I write now is contemporary and has little to do with what I wrote 40 years ago or what people my same age wrote 20 years ago. However, I'm often wrong.

1963 vintage, here. First published at 12 or 13 or thereabouts.

Hmmm. Have never published a book or short story. First photo published at 14, was a professional newspaper photographer and journalist at 17, and had more words in print that way than most novelists do in a lifetime. But there's no comparison between the ridiculously easy process of cranking out several articles a day for a newspaper and the very challenging one of creating a book.

I'd like to do this, but I'm not sure how you're defining professionally published. Are we talking about the age at which a new york publishing house showed interest in me (which means I can't answer this poll) or the age that we first got paid for work in print (in which case I'm in the below 18 category)?

ETA: Er. LOL. I can't read, I guess. I went ahead and answered anyway, because, upon rethinking, I think I fit the criteria you're looking for.

But in case I don't I'll explain: my first newspaper article appeared in the school paper at age 16, my first poem was published in a school magazine then, too. I also had one of my stories poached by a newspaper which decided it would be fine to not pay me for my work (after my journalism teacher cursed them a blue streak, they sent me a check for $25).Went into the theatre, where things work a little differently, but I began publishing short stories and poems (in the sense that people paid me for them) at age 24. I'm 28 now.

Edited at 2009-03-10 01:21 am (UTC)

At age 35; it was in a charity anthology, so I didn't get paid - does that still count?

Merry

>^..^

Forgot to say - Gen X. (although in the UK (among my peers, anyway) we refer to ourselves as the Star Wars generation, rather than Gen X)