Post-Orycon Musings

With the end of Orycon 30 now over 24 hours behind, I figured I'd capture a number of observations about our attendance this year.

- We spent much less time going at panels this year. While Carole spent more time socializing and helping set up for events, I spent time recharging batteries in our room. I even had time to write a couple thousand more words on Saturday afternoon. Without that helpful isolation time, I would not have been able to make it through Saturday night's ORC session.

- The ORCs were amazing this year. Friday night, the focus-on-the-hook sessions lasted until about 2:00AM. Not to be outdone, Saturday's session ran until very nearly 3:30AM with only one person leaving before they had a chance to read. Carole's adaptation of the Rogue Readings we attended at the Southern California Writer's Conference almost three years ago now are getting a very enthusiastic reception. Next year may need to go to multiple sessions to meet the demand.

- I appreciated the opportunity to meet many of Carole's writing friends and acquaintances, though I wasn't entirely comfortable with how socially dysfunctional I felt - more like a nightmare of introversion. I think there's a host of journal material to write about there and certainly a whole lot to improve before next year.

- On the downside, I was hoping that this year's convention would reignite my desire to write. Instead, it reinforced how many things I need to focus on to get the rest of my lift in control before expanding my engagements. Many thanks to Ken Scholes for his messaging on self-awareness.

All in all, a good con. I'm cautiously optimistic about next year's event at its new home - especially after a refreshed focus on goals for the coming year.

Whew...

I just went over the 50,000 word mark for NaNoWriMo. This is my fifth year and simply getting started on I will remember it as a most challenging NaNoWriMo effort.

I could pass it off as difficult because of a busy work schedule, but I think it’s a bit deeper than that. I think that the difficulty this year is coming from being out of practice more than anything else.

Coming off of last year’s Orycon, I set several personal writing goals, the most notable was a goal of writing 1,000 words a day. It didn’t go so well and fell by the wayside long ago. I had managed to make it well past the three-week length that was supposed to help form the daily writing into a habit, but the habit quickly became more about battling to stay up late every night, hammering away at a keyboard that resisted me every step of the way. I fell further and further behind everything else that was going on at the time while I grew more depressed about my sagging writing commitment.

When I ultimately let it go, I let slide a number of other writing objectives as well. All the while, I looked forward to November as that time of the year I knew I'd be attracted back to writing, but as November approached, the planning for the upcoming novel effort as was a foreign process. I entered midnight of November 1 with only a vague idea of where I wanted to go with the story.

It took slogging through it to get to the point where the flow had once again returned and I'm not finished yet. But the advice for anyone who cares a whit is not to give up. Slog through it. It will become easier and you will feel better for the effort.

Go INKsters and Go NaNo-ers!!

Eating The Words.

NaNo and 45,000 words. So close to the finish line I can smell it. Oh wait, that's the burning roasting cauliflower and leeks in the oven.

A few weeks ago I mentioned to Kami about my theory of the importance of eating healthy and exercising during November's National Novel Writing Month and how I felt that just perhaps, all that talk of chocolate and caffeine consumption to get us writers through to the finish line wasn't in everyone's best interest.

I proposed that junk food, sugar, caffeine, and lack of movement be limited somewhat to see if we all could get through NaNo's weeks two and three without the expected petering out or near total meltdown in word count. I would never propose a complete 180 degree change in eating habits just for the month because well, your mileage may vary, vastly in fact, and fainting from lack of chocolate cake is a poor excuse for not writing.

I don't know if it worked for anyone else but it seemed to be a rousing success here at home. It's a plan I'll follow for many more Novembers to come.

Go INKsters!

Decisions decisions

Great INK meeting last night.  I got some writing done, and a lot of talking done.

The talking thing is necessary, at least for me.  I'm a social critter and I'm not good at keeping news, concerns and ideas to myself.  Maybe that's part of my writer-psyche-profile.  This irrational, arrogant, persistent and psychotic need to express myself with the hope that others will actually want to hear what I have to say, even if it's pure fiction.

I'm all set for OryCon 30, or as ready as I'll ever be, except for one thing.  I haven't decided what I'm going to read for the Broad Universe reading yet.  This has not been good for my nerves.  My practice time is rapidly dissolving away.  

On my list (and I'm still expanding the list)

"Calling In"  A humor flash.  

Appeal--I'll be able to read the whole thing.  It's (hopefully) funny.  I've heard many times that humor goes over well at readings.  I'll fit in with the tone of the others who are likely also reading humor.

Doubts--It's trite and not really representative of what I usually write.  I rarely write humor.  And humor is hard, so I'm uncomfortable about reading something that I haven't practiced extensively.  

"Neighbors" A fantasy flash

Appeal--It's new and punchy and I'll be able to read the whole thing with time to spare.

Doubts--It's new and may be rougher than I realize since I haven't let it sit for long.

"The Egret Prince"  A dark, sensual fantasy

Appeal--It's moody, sexy (and I've been working on making it even sexier) and I worked on making it as lush an experience as I could.  It's a Lace and Blade swashbuckling sort of setting without the actual swashbuckling.

Doubts--I've recently disassembled this story in order to deal with a dual-plot issue.  It's literally in pieces.  Also, I'm not sure how well a small section of this would read without the context of the rest of the piece.  It's a complex, weird world with odd magic rules.  Assuming I can find a piece of it long enough to read, it still may make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"Masks"  A political fantasy

Appeal--I've put a lot of time into this and I think it has some very strong sections.  I feel very close with the pov character and enjoy his boy-trying-to-be-a-man struggles.  I really relate to him and I think there's a natural artfulness in the world of jesters that may appeal to listeners.

Doubts--I have no friggin' idea what part to read.  There's the opening, which I think may have too much going on and too little resolution/revelation to satisfy a listener.  Yeah yeah, leave 'em wanting more, but this may leave 'em thinking 'huh?'  And there's the whole rest of the novel, where I have too many choices.  It seems like a massive undertaking just to find what I'd read out of this.

"Thistles and Barley"  A fantasy short which will appear in Beneath Ceaseless Skies online magazine

Appeal--I'll be able to provide a teaser for the magazine, and this one obviously was publishing quality because it made the cut, so I can have fewer doubts about whether it's sound of mind and body.  And the characters are fun.

Doubts--This is a very quiet story that may be underwhelming when only a portion of it is read.

"Hide and Seek" A dark fantasy

Appeal--I love the creepy horror that lies at the core of this story.  And I'll probably be able to read the whole thing.

Doubts--This one is newish and may be rougher than I realize.  And if everyone else reads humor, this is beyond a dark note.  Child abuse, death ... yeah.

"Strangers Think They Know Me" A fantasy short

Appeal--I love this story about a sorceress reaching the end of her life, trying to act as if she's as strong as ever.

Doubts--It's an unreliable pov and that doesn't come out until quite late.  Not sure I could find a section that works without the rest to build it or put it into context.

"Mayhem" A fantasy novel

Appeal--Yay first person!  Yay strong opening!  Yay strong characters!

Doubts--Boo, this is still in early draft form thanks to me switching to first person recently.  Boo, it's what I submitted for the writer's workshop and I haven't gotten feedback on it yet, except at Flogging the Quill.

"The Belief" An SF novel

Appeal--I love the characters even more than the Thistles and Barley and Mayhem combined.  There's a hard-hitting antagonism that makes for great dialogue in this novel.  There's all kinds of sections I could read that would have lots of punch.

Doubts--This novel isn't finished.  It's never been vetted by anyone.  It was written quickly, has remained in the dark, and hasn't been edited at all because I don't edit first drafts.  Ugh.

These are the top contenders.  

Endeavor Award Announcement

I apologize if the font or formatting is wonky.  Cut and paste can mess things up.  KZM

November 13, 2008
For Immediate Release:
Miyazaki Figurines From LeGuin Auctioned to Benefit Endeavour Award

For additional information contact:

James W. Fiscus, Chairman
Phone: 503-239-7641
E-Mail: mailto:Fiscus@teleport.comor Fiscus@sff.net
Web: www.osfci.org/endeavour

The Endeavour Award announces an on-line auction of two figurines given to Ursula K. LeGuin by Hayao Miyazaki.  The figurines are of a Gardener from Miyazaki's film Island in the Sky and the Castle from Howl's Moving Castle.  They will be auctioned on e-Bay beginning Friday, November 21.

Full information about the Award and the auction is on the Award's Web site:  www.osfci.org/endeavour.  A link to the auction will be posted on the site when the auction begins.

The annual Endeavour Award honors a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book, either a novel or a single-author collection, created by a writer living in the Pacific Northwest.  The Award comes with a grant of $1,000.00.

Finalists for the 2008 Award are: "The Book of Joby," by Mark J. Ferrari; "Bright of the Sky," by Kay Kenyon; "Not Flesh Nor Feathers," by Cherie Priest; "Powers," by Ursula K. LeGuin; and "The Silver Ship and the Sea," by Brenda Cooper.  Mark Ferrari, Kay Kenyon, Cherie Priest, and, Brenda Cooper are from Washington and are first-time finalists.  Oregon writer Ursula K.LeGuin has won the Endeavour Award twice.  The winner will be announced November 21 at Orycon in Portland, Oregon.

The Endeavour Award is sponsored by Oregon Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. (OSFCI), a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.

Hurray for great blogs!

I found a great blog today.  Visit Flights of Fantasy when you can; maybe it'll be your cup of tea too.  I love the professionalism and the focus on publishing and fantasy and everything else so far that I've read.  The Writer Beware blog linked over and I'm so glad.  I would have never found this page otherwise.

Which just goes to show that there's really so much more out there than any one person can ever find.  We can all afford to be picky about our sources.  Even when we're extra picky, there's way more good stuff than I have time to read, so finding something that speaks to me directly, where I feel like we're on the same page, is great and good.  There's no reason to slog through stuff wearily because you should (should meant in the yuckiest way possible here) when the same or better info is available elsewhere in a format and style that connects with you.  

BTW I also make a point of reading pages where I regularly disagree with the people, but they have to prove themselves very smart, hopefully so much smarter than me that they could dance arguments around my head while I stare, dumbfounded, so smart that they could then communicate those arguments in a way that I understand.  I may still disagree, but I'll know more than I did before.  Love those kinds of blogs.  Often they speak to me too, in the way that I like to have passionate disagreements sometimes.

But Flights of Fantasy isn't one of those.  This is my version of an "all right thinking people" blog, a blog for Kamis.  Kamis the world 'round will flock to this blog and when they read it say yea, verily, this is a good blog.

Insomnia

Insomnia.

I very, very rarely get insomnia.  Ask my better half.  When I go to bed, with rare exception I go to sleep with ease, and except for a night walk or two I sleep through to morning.  Sometimes I sleep very shallowly, not quite full-under, which may or may not have triggered some dizzy spells way back when.  The source of those dizzies was never fully explained.

Anyway, I slept for about three hours and then inexplicably woke up full riot.  Maybe it was the strange, reality-twisted dream that inspired thoughts of a bizarre flash erotica horror.  Maybe it was that I stayed up very late the night before, slept late, and went to bed early tonight.  Threw off my cycle.  Under usual circumstances I'd be thinking dangit, I'm going to be messed up for the next few days.

But it's not usual circumstances.  It's Nano!  So after about an hour of reading with no luck recapturing the sleepies, and another hour of tossing and turning, I called b.s. on trying to go back to sleep, dressed in comfies and dashed down here to write.    I can gnash my teeth, tear my hair and throw ashes on my head tomorrow when I try to accomplish some stuff.  For now I'll take advantage of the distraction-free quiet, and the echoes of dreams half-lived in tesseract time.

I'll add on a reminder:  Nano meeting coming up this Friday!  Got word count?

Breathe, Just Breathe

*Tap *Tap...Is this thing still on?

It's just me coming up for air during this crazy month filled with NaNoWriMo and write ins and Word Stock and OryCon. How's everyone doing with their NaNo novel? Good? Let me ask, have you sat there yet with a blank brain and without a single thought going through your head except that itchy, uncomfortable feeling that maybe, just maybe, you bit off more than you can chew?

Well, if so, you know what they say in NaNoWriMo land: Time to release the wolves, time to let in the guy with the gun, time to wheel out the dead body.

What? But your novel is all about puppies and rainbows? No wolves, guns, or stiffs? Even the occasional puppy goes rogue, you know. No really, statistically it's true. And no one really knows for sure what happens if the end of a rainbow just happens to fall on your head. That pot of gold has gotta hurt, don't you think?

Don't forget to what-if yourself and your novel, but you already know this. Go INKsters!

It's the Night

Tonight at midnight Nanowrimo begins.  Good luck INKers and friends of INK!

Check!

I got my first payment check yesterday for words I've written.  It's an amazing feeling.  So many years of practice, workshops, flattening my butt on at least a half dozen different computer chairs.  Novels, shorts, stories long since lost or abandoned, hundreds of thousands of words of fantasy that will never see the light of day because I needed that million words of crap before I could begin to make real progress.  Learning to connect with a reader.  Learning to find a balance between my internal editor and my dreams.  Learning to educate myself, because so much of the education of a writer happens either entirely from the inside or by deliberately, through an act of will and trust, separating the ego from the written word long enough to accept a professional opinion.  Learning who trust and when, especially myself (and when not to trust myself.)

The kewlest part of all this?  It's a beginning.  A long road to travel to begin, but that's the nature of this, and many other crafts.

NaNo Brainstorming Rocks!

Awesome evening spent at Kami's brainstorming and outlining our NaNo stories. Good food shared with good conversation in front of a warm, crackling fire (with good pet accompanyment) made for a great time! We made strong headway I think. If we don't watch out, we all just might have novels circulating out there sometime next year.

Thanks again Kami! Your downstairs library/study room is incredible and the vibe fantastic for writing.

INK sponsors an Open House for Nanowrimo

Come one, come all to the INK Open House for Nanowrimo!  Food, drinks, and fun!  October 24, 2008, 6pm, Kami's house.  If you need directions or other details, email kamila at easystreet dot net.  The plan is to discuss our Nano projects for this year, do a little outlining and brainstorming if necessary, and generally prepare to sit down, shut up and write.  Kami lives in the Columbia River Gorge not far from east Vancouver, WA.  If you want to learn about or participate in Nanowrimo, this is a good first step.

The Kickoff Party for Nanowrimo in Vancouver, WA is on the 27th.  See the Nanowrimo web page for details.  There are also lots of write-ins scheduled, including some for midnight when it officially becomes Nov. 1 (your local time.)  Kick off parties and write-ins are happening all over the world, so if you're not local to me, check out your region and see what's what.

Adrenaline is my friend

I had my first panicked OMG Nanowrimo is in single digit days moment.  I have an idea, a plan, and inspiration, but what I don't have is a lot of time.  I have to maintain 3000 words a day to make the goal for the month.  That's not a big word count, but that's a big daily word count, if that makes sense.  My writing schedule has been so disrupted I'm a bit worried that I may be out of practice of the daily writing thing.  

Which is one of the reasons why Nano is so awesome--daily writing habits are refreshed and reinforced.  If I didn't do this every year, I'm fairly certain I'd be a much lazier writer.  

Flashed by Writer's Block

Steve and C.S. brought fun show and tell books to the Washougal library combined writers and Nano prep meeting.  They included two of the really kewl Writer's Block books and a book on 45 character archetypes.  I ended up making tons of notes on my Nanowrimo novel project and wrote a flash.  That's one heckuva productive meeting right there!

It was a good time to get out of the house, otherwise I probably would have gotten zilch done in writing today.  Unfortunately I'd miscalculated the time of the OryCon 30 meeting and missed it. 

In other news, I've had a story accepted for publication.  I'll post details when I'm cleared to do that.  Also, my honorable mention certificate arrived from Writers of the Future.  It's gorgeous and hand-signed.  Definitely something I'm going to frame for the office or maybe the I Love Me Wall in the stairwell.

Autumn INK Sightings.

WooHoo! INK meeting tonight. Wide assortment of topics to be discussed.

INK at Library Saturday with NaNoWriMo brainstorming immediately afterward.

INK meets again on the 24th. Prep for NaNo plus outlining/writing time and looking ahead toward OryCon 30 and beyond are topics.

A Farewell.

It is with great sorrow that INK bids goodbye to Carissa Reid, one of INK's founding members. We wish her the best of luck in all her future writing endeavors.

You Want Me to Write for FREE?

Thanks to Jim Fiscus for sending this article out to the Lucky Labs and by default, me.  Here's the scary part.  The blog owner, who is soliciting non-fiction articles, is so very insistent that she's not asking for writers to provide articles for free.  Payment, to her, is promotion.  

If it were a very prestigious and high-volume blog where I know the owner isn't getting any $$ from the articles, I would probably do it.  But, a very prestigious and high-volume blog that gets advertising money and whatever all else--you'd think that they'd be able to afford to pay the author, even if it's a tenth of a cent per hit or something like that.  And if it's not prestigious and high volume, then huh?  Why would this be worth a writer's time and effort?

The promotional opportunity here?  Zilch.  Again, if the blog owner hopes to build prestige and business through the blog, she should cut the writer in or, less painfully, cut them a check for a flat amount and have done.  

Or maybe I should simply say yeah!  What Ms. Hoy said!

Backup

This is hopefully a timely reminder for everyone to back up your data.  Now.  You have time to surf the web and read blogs, so you have time to back up, obviously.  

Well, I guess you might be at work reading this.

But still, back 'er up!  If you don't and something happens to your data, don't come whining to me.

No future for me

Looks like I didn't make it into the finalists with my Writers of the Future sub.  There's still a small chance I'll get an honorable mention.  One more box.  I hope!  It would be my very first one!  If not, I guess I'll get the form answer in my mailbox shortly.  I wonder if I made it pretty far or if I was just at the bottom of the stack.  I'll probably never find out.

The good news (kind of  stretch, I know) is that I can start sending this story out.  I've been eager to do that for quite a while now.  And I can send in my next WotF submission.  I probably could have done that all along, but I was hoping.  Ugh.

How Flashy are you feeling?

Apex Book Company is having its annual Halloween flash fiction contest.  Scare them with Election Horror in a thousand words or less if you dare!  Former INK guest and writer extraordinaire Jay Lake is the celebrity judge.  

And if you can include housework, you'll kill two birds with one stone, meeting C.S.'s latest challenge.  

The winner and second place get SFWA-qualifying pro rate payment and publication in Apex Digest online.  The deadline is Oct. 15.  Spooked by close deadlines?  Face your fears and embrace the terror!  After all, it's for Halloween, er, elections, er ... just write the darned story already!

Another one bites the dust

Got another blue slip of death from Realms of Fantasy.  I'm actually enjoying getting them--not as much as an acceptance, mind you--but they're apparently infamous and besides, they're kind of pretty.

Why are they infamous?  Your mileage may vary.  Writers are imaginative people and they come up with all kinds of reasons that they don't like or like something.  I've heard/read that the slips are particularly impersonal, that you get them regardless of writing quality and so there's no hinted feedback at all.  I've heard/read that the small size makes the writer feel small.  The content is very general, and lists some of the reasons why both poor and good manuscripts are rejected--again, giving the author no feel for where their story may be on the scale.  And there's a number on them--the average number of manuscripts received in a given period.

Me?  I like them.  I like the color.  I like that it's an efficient size--it fits perfectly inside a legal envelope, no muss, no fuss, no folds to straighten when I file them.  I like that my story and the date it was viewed is hand written on the rejection, and that so far, I've never had someone else's rejection come to my mailbox.  And I like that they make the editor's job easy.  That means she can go through more manuscripts faster.  That means quicker responses so I can return my manuscript into the marketplace where it may find a home, and hopefully it's less likely that the editor will burn out.

So, although it was disappointing not to get a fat envelope with a contract in it, I still smiled.  Another pretty blue note to add to my collection, and I didn't even have to date or put the title of the story on it before I filed it.

Way-yay-ting is the hardest part!

I hate waiting.

I try not to wait.  I try to keep writing and editing and looking forward.  I try to build my story portfolio and keep things in the mail.  But there's a certain contest I'm very eager to hear from.  Every time I load the page I think why, oh why isn't it updated?  It's been ten days since their big to-do.  Isn't there even a teensy eensy batch of new results?  Is anyone calling anyone to let them know they're on the honorable mention list?  

It's all part of the writing thang.  The anticipation is part of the 'fun.'  

Done with whining, back to writing.

Whine!

Okay, done now for real this time.

OryCon 30 Writer's Workshop

Don't forget to submit!  The workshop deadline is sneaking up!

I've got my submission all put together.  I just have to wait until email starts to behave again.  For some reason the server is being a pill.

Update:  Got a nice rejection.  Sent that baby right back out.  We're at 43 subs and 31 rejections.  Keep going, INKers!

Another One Flies In and Flies Back Out

I got a rejection back today.  The comment puzzled me--I'm not sure that adding another scene to a flash humor piece would work.  I guess it would, maybe, but then it wouldn't be flash and the humor wouldn't punch, it would whiffle.  Maybe (trying to read between the lines here) it didn't quite end for the reader.  Or maybe it didn't have a climax, or the reader wanted a twist.  Something wasn't there.  Anyway.  I hunted around markets to see where to send this next (I love sending rejected stories back out the same day) and came across some guidelines that made me look at the story in a new way.  I didn't end up sending to that market because it didn't pay pro rates and I want to exhaust my pro markets before I go to semi-pro, but I did tweak the story a bit.  I think it added needed depth without sacrificing the humor.  Or so I hope.  It added a few words, and I took away a sentence that I thought wasn't carrying its weight.  

When working at a short length, especially flash, a whole sentence can create a surprising amount of change.  A paragraph that drags can shine when the chaff is removed, or an unimaginative passage can become enriched by a single, sensory-bright description.

One thing that I think is lacking in my marketing at the moment, and that only time and more depth of work can change, is I haven't been able to send in very many second submissions, much less thirds.  I've submitted to Flash Fiction Online more than anyone, but they've only looked at three stories so far.  Technically I've sent quite a bit to F&SF, but most of my subs were from long ago.  I've only sent them one recently.  Part of that is due to the fact that there are a lot of wonderful places to publish out there and I try to fit the story to the market as much as I can.  I know (or educate myself about) what they publish and some stories are closer to a particular style than others.  But part is that I've spent the past many years writing novels and I refuse to send old stories unless they've been rewritten from scratch.  I don't think editing old writing will bring it up to my current skill level.  I think it'll just turn to mud.

What was the comment in the guidelines?  They wanted characters that they cared about.  A lightbulb came on.  Now, hopefully, the pov character is someone special, someone human, something more than an archetype for me to use to poke fun with.  It's the difference between the three men who walk into a bar and Fat Albert.  I want Fat Albert.  If I have three men walking into a bar, it's not a story, it's just a joke.  So, thanks, commenter.  I didn't take your advice, but I think I ended up in a good place because of you anyway.  

INK Author Series Continues with Ken Scholes.

As part of the 2008 INK Visiting Author Series, I am very proud to announce that Ken Scholes and his amazing wonder-wife Jen will be visiting us on Friday, September 19th to speak about his journey from writer to author (and most everything in between).

Ken, besides being one of the best speakers on writing process I personally have heard to date (his Norwescon Writer's Workshop was fantastic!), is well published, is currently working on his five-book series for Tor beginning with "Lamentation" due out in just a few months, and is an absolute delight to read and listen to.

This will be a evening to remember.