A Question For All You Published Writers Out There

[queenoftheskies]

Whether you write novels or short stories or poems...

What's your favorite piece you've ever written and had published? And, if you don't mind sharing, why is it your favorite?

What is the most popular work you've had published? What piece does your adoring reading public like the best?

If it's the same as your favorite, what do you think is the reason?

If it's NOT the same as your favorite, what do you think was the reason the readers liked it the best?

Thanks!

Comments

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i'm one of those crabby people who don't like anything i've published.

my most popular piece is a stage play ~ it gets produced at least once a year. i hate the thing so much i rarely ever charge for it.

the reasons are all complicated. most of the stuff i have published isn't stuff i love. or if i ever loved it, it was taken over in that grey area between adjusting it to what i know will sell from what i originally wrote.

i don't think anything i've ever published has any real integrity.

except Eleison perhaps, but that's self-published so it sorta feels like it doesn't really count.

: o p

[cyberwuzzle.livejournal.com]

Hey there..

My favorite book is Water Crystal and it's also my worst seller. :-/ It's my favorite because I spent such a long time crafting the world and living there while I wrote the book. Technically I think it's one of my best books to date and I LOVE, love, luuuurve the characters.

I think it doesn't sell as well because it's a such a long book (120k) and also because the plot is a little too science fiction-y for most readers. It's also my least "hot" book to date.

My best seller is A Change of Season and I'm not quite sure why it's such a popular book. It, er, is pretty hot. *g* That might be part of it.

Ordinary Charm is my second best seller. That one features an overweight heroine and I suspect that's a lure for many readers. :)

[fjm.livejournal.com]

My favourite piece is the introduction to Polder, the festscrhift I edited for the Clutes. I put a lot of love into that, and worked very hard to build in a sense of who they are.

The most popular is the essay on Harry Potter, "Crowning the King": not sure why, given that it completely trashes the series. It's about to be reprinted (3rd time).

[cicadabug.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I have enough of a sample to say. To date, two poems and one short story of mine has seen print (one more short is due out in December). I've also read the short story, The Ins and Outs of Intergalactic Diplomacy, out loud in front of an audience at a convention once, and it went over really well. I'm very fond of it, and people seem to have liked it, and it got good reviews. I think it's "popular" (as popular as something can be when nobody's ever heard of me) because it's funny and rather indelicate. Which is mostly why I like it too.

Generally I like the stuff I've had published, because if I don't like it I don't send it out. I haven't yet grown to hate something after the fact of publication, though I suppose that's always a possibility.

[mark-west.livejournal.com]

My favourite of my own stories is something called "Smile", which I wrote and sold in 1999 (but which was published in 2000). It's about a student, who is approached by an attractive photographer, who says that he has a wonderful smile and could she possibly have it? I enjoy it because it wrote quickly and easily, it did exactly what I wanted it to do and I filled it with in-jokes. It's been published in print (in the late, lamented 'Sci-Fright') and on-line (at Redsine.com) and if I ever do a "Strange Tales 2", I'll probably include it.

What appears to be my favourite, from comments I've received, is my short "Speckles", which is about an obsessive-compulsive clean freak who keeps finding speckles on him, which he has to remove at all costs - be they on his clothes, skin or elsewhere. It was published in the wonderful (and late and lamented 'Sackcloth & Ashes') and at Horrorfind.com and is also in "Strange Tales".

I think, objectively, that "Speckles" is a better story - it's probably a more original premise, the writing is stronger (it was written in either 2000 or 2001, as I recall) and it's more organic. It does have an in-joke too - there's a very definite link between it and my novel, which some readers have identifed (and that really pleased me).

My short-short, "Toes", has only been published once and was on my website for ages. It's about a foot fetishist and is a story I like to read aloud, if I ever have to give a reading and it generally gets a very good reception.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I'm not at all sure about my favourite, but the most popular is an extract of something that got put online with typos and stuff. I have had nearly 20,000 readers of this little article on Old French insults from the chansons de geste. It isn't even well-written.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

well, lets see. My favorite published piece is "Rainfall," which also seems to be my most popular piece (mostly by dint of a glowing review in Tangent Online). Everyone who has read "Rainfall" says I hit all the right emotional buttons.

The story I just sold, "Out Among the Singing Void," is my actual favorite story of my own because I feel like I did everything right in this one. I'm looking forward to seeing public reaction to it. It has been well received at readings.

But I think my best story is "Fetch." It was hard to write on a gut-level, and it's a difficult story to swallow as a reader, but it really works, despite how heavy and sad it is. I've nearly sold it four times, each time the Editor-in-Chief sending me personal rejection about how much they enjoyed it, but couldn't buy it for one reaso nor another.

[aberrant1.livejournal.com]

By far my favorite published story is Falling Rock, which is such a weird length it took me four years to sell. I wouldn't have kept trying if I hadn't believed it was the best thing I ever wrote. It paid off in the end, though.

The most popular... I don't know. I'm guessing more people have read Right of Way than any other story of mine, because Blithe House Quarterly has a pretty wide readership. It's an old story, written in college, and I'm not ashamed of it but I hope I'm writing much better now.

[aberrant1.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, and I guess I have to add that among the people I know, "Falling Rock" easily gets the best reception. It surprises people who've read my earlier writing that I can write something subtle and quiet and non-violent. It surprises people who haven't that I can write better than they expected -- Gainesville is absolutely full of aspiring writers. So "I'm a writer" doesn't mean anything around here. People have to read your work for themselves before they decide you really can write.

[andelku.livejournal.com]

"Paladin Fred" which was broadcast as "Gamers make good soliders" on NPR.

Paladin Fred was about this gamer kid I knew who, despite being morally opposed to the war in Iraq, still wanted to be a knight and save the world. And so he had volunteered for the Army National Guard, knowing they'd send him to Iraq, because he'd already lost some friends there. (this was 2003, so it seemed more plausible than it would now).

Not only did it tie together gaming and politics (which I didn't think was possible), but it ended up a commentary about the difference between actual patriotism and nationalism, about the romanticism inherent in fantasy gaming and about that buring desire among young people to make a difference.

The response I got was stunning! People called the radio. People called the store I worked in. One guy called my house, because in those innocent days I was listed. The guy who called my house was a Vietnam vet from LA who wanted to come to my city and talk Fred out of enlisting-and was upset to hear that it was too late. "I was just like that," he said.

[vincam.livejournal.com]

What's your favorite piece you've ever written and had published?

Hard to say, since my published fiction are a series and more or less one piece. However, when I was a journalist there was a newspaper article I wrote on a slow news day that got a lot of comment. Folks were amazed I could take such a mundane subject and scrape together an informative article on it. It was about pot holes. That sort of stands out as an amusing accomplishment.