Just back from a writing weekend at the Oregon coast with Kate, Laurel Amberdine and her Chris, Corie J. Conwell, Diana Sherman, Shannon Page, and Executive Chef Jay Lake who tried to kill himself with a knife on the first day and spent the rest of the weekend trying to kill the rest of us with delicious high-calorie goodies. (Mmm, momos.) Despite which we somehow had room for a stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for ice cream on the way home.
In addition to the eating, much writing and hilarity ensued. Walks on the beach. Gossip. We decided that the Next Hot Thing will be unicorns, but unicorns as unlike the typical boring sparkly old-hat unicorn as the fast zombies in 28 Days Later were unlike the shambling zombies of yore. We’re talking carnivorous, ancient, implacable, anthropomorphic, shapeshifting unicorns. We’re going to make it happen, just you watch.
I spent my writing time revising a short story and a novella. I realized that the reason I hate revisions is that when you’re drafting, you know when you’re getting close to the end, but when you’re revising — especially if what you’re trying to do is “make the story more (x)”, e.g. “make the character more sympathetic” or “make this plot point more plausible” — it’s hard to know when you’ve achieved that goal and when you need to do more. Double especially when, as seems to be the case more often than not for me, the feedback you’re trying to address is “make the story more (x)” when you already pulled out all the stops and made the story as (x) as you possibly could in the first draft.
We dropped off Laurel and Chris at Mary Robinette Kowal’s new digs, where they will be spending the rest of this week and we were all treated to a delightful vegetarian dinner and conversation. Marlowe the cat decided not to entertain us by demonstrating his Helmet of Invisibility.
A grand time was had by all and it’s not quite over yet. Corie is spending the night here; tomorrow morning we drop her off at the airport. Then we will have another house guest (square dancing friend Mark) tomorrow night. But for now… to bed.
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