Thanks for getting the meme started. Hmm. I think this is a real writer’s question. For all that non-writers wonder how writers do the thing they do, I think a lot of writers are kind of surprised/bemused at folk who don’t. I can think of at least two writer friends who insist that *one day* I will pick up a pen and start writing fiction. This is not likely.

I’m a pretty much dedicated non-writer. I didn’t write stories as a kid, did everything but the composition part of English, and avoided it at almost every other juncture. I don’t think I ever had the urge to be a writer, though the idea of having written always seemed nice. I became an editor first, working on Eidolon from 1990, and have stuck to nonfiction almost exclusively.

The only exceptions were a novel outline that Jeremy Byrne and I put together in the mid-1990s. He sketched out most of the story and I wrote maybe a chapter or two of it. It was very Blaylockian, and is precisely where it belongs – at the bottom of a very deep trunk. I also sketched out a few story notes around the same time when Sean Williams and I discussed collaborating. They were never developed though, and that window too closed.

I definitely am not writing and not showing it to anyone – that sounds like way too much work for too little reward. I’m pretty contentedly working away on the editing and happy to leave writing to those who are attracted to it. I think it’s one reason I stay away from giving extensive advice to writers. I am a reader, and I bring that perspective to what I do. I think it’s what made me an ok reviewer and it makes me an ok editor. The behind the scenes ‘how to’ stuff belongs to those who are working at that particular cliff face.

Hope that answers the question.

Jonathan

But what about something on your own writing. Did you produce much fiction of your own? If so, when/why did you make the move to editing? Are you still writing and just not telling anyone?