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6/9/08: Taos Toolbox, day 2: Begin as you would continue

The first full day of classes began with a nice breakfast, though the butter wouldn’t melt on my English muffin right out of the toaster. I assume this is an effect of the altitude. Most meals are provided; I’m not sure what the options will be for Friday and Saturday’s dinners, which aren’t.

We convened in the lobby at 10am for opening remarks by Walter Jon Williams and Kelly Link and introductions all around, then jumped right in with critiques of two novel excerpts (everyone had to submit something for week 1 before the workshop started). Both works were of high general quality but interestingly flawed. The quality of the critiques was also quite high, with almost every one adding something interesting to the conversation. After lunch (I had cold leftover pizza from yesterday’s dinner, a rare indulgence) Walter gave us a brief lecture about Two Surefire Ways to Keep a Reader Reading.

In the afternoon Walter led a hike; Deborah Jacobs, Allen Moore, and I came along. (Many of the other students ran off to Taos to purchase supplies, but I think I have everything I need.) I was a bit nervous about tackling the exertion, after the way the altitude kicked my ass yesterday, but Walter promised a fairly easy hike and, indeed, I had no difficulty. It was almost entirely uphill, but not too steep, with crisp mountain air and gorgeous views.

We also met a very cute dachshund-chihuahua mix on the trail. We have been warned about the dangers of the local wildlife (Giardia! Hantavirus! Bubonic plague! Bears!) but this one seemed harmless enough.

I’m drinking Gatorade, taking lots of naps, and generally taking it easy. Lots of good, juicy conversations over meals, on the hike, and in the hall between sessions. So far so good.

Also: is blogging from Mexico! Go say hola.

6/9/08: Taos Toolbox, day 1: Clarion Deluxe, now with 50% less oxygen

Long day yesterday. Up at 5am, cab to the airport, uneventful flights to Albuquerque via SFO, picked up rental car, drove 130 miles to Taos Ski Valley. Some confusion over the various Taoses (Taos, Taos Pueblo, Taos Ski Valley, Taos Ski Valley Village) but we only got lost once.

Looks like a good bunch of people. As this is a “graduate-level” workshop, almost everyone here has attended Clarion or Odyssey or Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp or some such. It’s also an older crowd than my Clarion and Writers of the Future classes (for once I am not the Old Guy).

The accomodations are fabulous. I have a huge loft bedroom with a spectacular view, sharing a 3-bedroom 3-bath suite with Jerry Weinberg and Allen Moore (no, not that Alan Moore). The spiral stair is very keen but getting my humungous bag up to the loft was a trial, especially as I was suffering mightily from the altitude, with a wicked headache and dizziness verging on nausea.

I fell over hard at about 10pm, and after a good night’s sleep the symptoms are greatly reduced. I will strive to keep hydrated, avoid alcohol and caffeine for the first few days, and not overexert myself. First critiques at 10am today. Whee!

6/7/08: We’re off

(But then you knew that.)

Kate left for Mexico on Friday, for two weeks of Spanish language immersion. I’m leaving for New Mexico bright and early tomorrow, for two weeks of Taos Toolbox writing workshop with Walter Jon Williams, Kelly Link, and Stephen R. Donaldson. Whee!

6/4/08: Miscellaneous writing news

It’s been an eventful few days for me, writing-wise. I completed the requested rewrite, and received an almost immediate acceptance: “Aggro Radius” will be appearing in Gamer Fantastic, edited by Martin Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes. I also received my contract and check for “Midnight at the Center Court” from Witch Way to the Mall and my contract for “Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven” from Realms of Fantasy. And today’s mail brought a pleasant surprise: a package from F&SF with a copy of its French edition, containing “Titanium Mike à la rescousse!”

The French edition of F&SF is confusingly entitled Fiction and claims to be edited by “les moutons électriques.” According to its web page, “Fiction présente chaque semestre le meilleur de la science-fiction et du merveilleux. Tout simplement.” So I’m honored my story was selected for translation. And, even better, “tome 7” of this fine magazine features zeppelins on the cover.

I also took half an hour to whomp off a 500-word vignette for a nonprofit project. This was an educational experience. I remember at Clarion I protested mightily when Candas Jane Dorsey asked us to write a 500-word writing exercise as well as our weekly story. It was work! Eight years later it’s like rolling off a log, and not only that I think the resulting piece is pretty darn good. (Admittedly it’s funny and fanfic-ish, which made it easier.) Ever watch a professional jeweler replace a watch battery or watchband? It’s like that. Do something often enough, even something fairly complex, and it becomes almost automatic. Which only goes to show the value of writing more.

As I was adding the Gamer Fantastic story to my spreadsheet I took a moment to tot up some figures. I’ve written 45 stories since I started getting serious in 1998 (wow, that’s 10 years ago). Of those, 4 are in submission, 4 have been critiqued and are awaiting revision, 1 is awaiting critique, 5 have been trunked, and 31 have sold (some of them multiple times). That’s a pretty decent sell-through rate, if I do say so myself.

5/31/08: Wiscon, and going to my dark place

Word count: 2890 | Since last entry: 2890

For some reason, since returning from Wiscon I’ve been very low on energy and generally feeling swamped by life — certainly too overwhelmed to blog about the con. I mean, yes, it was a con and I didn’t get a lot of sleep, but usually I’m not this derailed by the experience. In any case, I seem to be mostly recovered now.

It’s not because I had the stomach bug, norovirus, WisCholera, or whatever you want to call it. Kate have gas and threw up once, but we think now that it might have been a reaction to some iron pills she had just started taking rather than The Bug. It certainly didn’t lay her out flat like it did many of the other people at the convention.

The con itself was great fun; all of my favorite people were there. In fact, I kept saying “I have too many friends!” because I saw so many of them only in passing. But I had many fine meals with many fine people, and the hallway conversations were varied and stimulating. One in particular stands out: talking with Barth Anderson about the precautions everyone was taking to prevent coming down with the bug and how much they reminded me of the things people did to try to avoid the Black Plague (ring around a rosie, pocketful of hand sanitizer, ashes ashes all throw up). Later Benjamin Rosenbaum and Sean M. Murphy joined us and it turned into a discussion of the appropriate Hebrew prayer for applying Purel. I also distinctly remember Sarah Monette demonstrating the magical utility of her corset by pulling a variety of useful objects out of her cleavage. (I really wish there were something for guys to wear at cons that was as sexy, yet socially acceptable, as a corset.) My best meal of the con for both food and conversation was on Monday, I think, when we joined enthusiastic Australian bookseller Ron Serdiuk at Dotty Dumpling’s for fried cheese curds and one of the best burgers I’ve had in years (mine was bison, but the beef ones also got rave reviews).

I was rather annoyed that we’d failed to snag a Governor’s Club room (we’d waited until a mere ten months before the convention to reserve our room, by which time they were long gone), not only because I missed the free breakfast but also for the hanging out with con people in a quiet and convivial space. The number of times someone said “well, look for me in the bar” (meaning the Governor’s Club bar, inaccessible without the right flavor of elevator key) made me so determined to not repeat this experience that I set an alarm for 8am Monday to make my reservation for next year. Good thing I did; Governor’s Club rooms were gone by 10:30am.

I didn’t attend a lot of programming, but the two panels I was on (“Get Out Your Decoder Rings,” on fiction that requires knowledge from outside the story to understand, and “The ‘Real City’ of Urban Fantasy,” which turned into a general discussion of the value of cities in fantastic fiction) both went very well, with rapid-fire and meaty discussion. The Fretful Porpentines reading (me, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, and Ellen Kushner) was well-attended, although I’m afraid the noise of the coffee maker made it a less satisfying experience for the audience than I’d hoped for. I also participated in the Sign-Out for the first time, as I finally had a whole book to myself, and it went pretty well… I signed about ten books and had a nice time talking with tablemates and passersby.

The best program item I attended was the Mid-Career Writers’ salon on Monday afternoon. This is an opportunity for those of us who have achieved some success to compare notes and complain about the problems that newer writers think they wish they had. One theme of the salon was that everyone described themselves as being in a weird transitional phase (I think this is just the human condition) and that success and happiness are both heavily influenced by the expectations set beforehand.

Since returning home, I have written a story for the Taos Toolbox workshop (for which I leave a week from today, ack). Thinking back to Clarion, I decided to really challenge myself — try new things and risk failure. The resulting story is very different from my usual. It’s the bleakest thing I’ve ever written, a grim tale of despair and honor killing in the wake of catastrophic global warming. It uses thematic imagery (of flood, storm, and collapsing levees), which is something I don’t think I’ve ever done consiously. It’s only 2800 words long. It has an unreliable narrator. And it’s written in second person present tense. Why? Well, I just started out thinking about the main character talking to herself, and her voice kind of took over the narrative. I don’t yet know if it’s the most emotionally powerful thing I’ve ever written, or a complete failure. We’ll find out in less than two weeks.

In other writing news, I got a rewrite request on a story which I think is very likely to turn into a sale. I’ll get to that rewrite in the next couple of days. One of the many things I have to do before leaving for Taos.

5/20/08: Signing in Milwaukee

Word count: 6053 | Since last entry: 633


From left to right: Kate, Dave the owner of the Safe House, my dad, me, my mom

We’re in Milwaukee. Sold and signed 11 copies of Space Magic at Panther Books this afternoon, mostly to friends of my parents’, followed by a wonderful dinner at Kincaid’s. We’re staying at the Art-Deco-styled Hotel Metro. Having a great time and looking forward to Wiscon in a few days.

I finished and submitted the story I’d been working on and I’ve been doing my novel crits for Wiscon. Once I finish those I must immediately begin work on another short story for Taos Toolbox, which is due June 1. It’s going to be a challenge for me…

5/15/08: Another sale!

Last night’s reading at Powell’s went very well: just about every chair was filled, with people from all my various communities (fandom, writing, work, square dancing, Clarion, neighbors, and even a few people I don’t know). I read my story “Nucleon,” an old favorite I haven’t read in a while, and signed bunches of books. The 36 attendees bought 27 copies of Space Magic, out of 32 in stock, plus 4-5 other books of mine (um, by which I mean anthologies containing one story of mine each). Peter from the bookstore says that’s some kind of record for proportion of attendees buying the book. I’ll post some pictures when I get them.

And then today I got an email indicating that Esther Friesner is buying my story “Midnight at the Center Court” for her anthology Witch Way to the Mall. Two sales and a book launch in one week, not too shabby.

Other things are happening, though, some good, some not so good (maybe very not-so-good). More news as the information becomes available.

I sold short story “Midnight at the Center Court” to Witch Way to the Mall, an anthology edited by Esther Friesner.

5/13/08: Sale!

I mentioned a while ago I had some good news I couldn’t yet share. Well, it’s official now: I sold short story “Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven” to Realms of Fantasy (my third sale there).

This is my “bureaucracy in Heaven” story, which I originally wrote at Clarion West (2000). It was the best-received of the lot and I knew it wouldn’t take very much to make it publishable. And indeed I didn’t make a lot of changes to it… it just took me until 2006 to get around to them. And then it took two years and eight rejections before it finally sold. Just another overnight success.

This story is the bookend to “The Curse of Beazoel”, my “bureaucracy in Hell” story, which appeared in the anthology All Hell Breaking Loose (2005). However, although “Beazoel” appeared first, “Joy” was written much earlier.

One last reminder for Portland folks: I have a Space Magic reading tomorrow (Wednesday May 14) at Powell’s in Cedar Hills at 7pm. Hope to see you there! And if you aren’t in Portland, after tomorrow you should be able to order a signed copy from powells.com. Or you can order an unsigned copy from wheatlandpress.com and get it in front of me somehow, and I’ll be happy to sign it.

Whee!