Let’s be honest, not always.

Most writing is unsolicited. Although a fair proportion of my writing nowadays has been commissioned in one way or another, most of the stuff I’ve done has been on spec. The short story market certainly works that way, and only a minority of authors sell a novel through an outline.

Face it, nobody asked us to write, and the fact that we’ve written a story unasked doesn’t mean that someone has to buy it any more than the fact that your local McDonalds has made too many Big Macs means that you have to eat them to stop them being wasted. Continue reading →