Sunday, April 2

Around five hundred words written today. Perhaps more will be written
later. Did some reading today too.
I'm going to get my taxes mailed. I'm getting some money back with all
the writing deductions. The big deductions being World Fantasy and
WesterCon from last year.

And I'm putting together a behavior modification strategy, something I
learned in a college psychology course called (of course!) Behavior
Modification. One other book is giving me help in creating this
strategy. It's called Self-Defeating Behaviors by Milton R. Cudney,
PH.D. & Robert E. Hardy, ED.D. The first two thirds of this book
explains how self-defeating behaviors are born, perpetuated, and
practiced. The last third deals with getting rid of those behaviors.
Excellent and thorough book. Enlightening for me. I don't think I could
put together an effective strategy of behavior modification today
without what I have learned from that book.
My self-defeating behavior, which may seem obvious, is procrastination.
And I'm applying this strategy to writing, but more specifically to
following a schedule and accomplishing daily goals. Years of
undisciplined behavior catches up with you, yeah know?

All I need right
now is a one hour writing session per day. I'm going for two pages in
that hour to begin with. I'll see how that goes, I don't think that goal
will be too high.
The toughest part of creating a behavior modification strategy is coming
up with rewards. I think writing should be it's own reward because I
know I used to feel so charged and high when I wrote. I've been getting
that same feeling again. It's just taken me awhile to get past that
inner critic and self-doubt. The more I had learned what went into a
good story and good writing, the more the self-doubt grew. I'm still
working through that and it's getting easier.
I just want to go at it a little faster and make more progress.


Tuesday, April 4

I'm off to another workshop tonight. And the workshop has been busy.
Three stories to be critqued tonight. I think we've had a three-story
night twice in the last month. In the last six weeks we've mainly had
two-story nights. Before that Dare To Be Bad in February, we were lucky
to get a story a week to critque. And I don't think the stories we've
been getting lately are from that dare.
Yesterday I did no writing. I sat down but I didn't write. I'm back at
it again today.


Thursday, April 6

At workshop the other night, Eric Witchey brought in a rejection from
Asimov's. It was a personal reply and Gardner said some good things. I
guess Gardner Dozois was an instructor at his Clarion West in '98.
Well, Eric has brought in six stories within the last seven weeks to be
critqued by our group. Next week we're critiquing #6. He didn't miss a
week when he brought #1 through 5. He's learning a lot (he has said as
much) and he is using the workshop in a very beneficial way. It's just
like Clarion. Except without the hot dorms and stories to critique every
night.
It won't be long before he makes his first sale.

I'm going on about this because it's so easy for me to admire the
progress and confidence of other people, as well as it is easy for me to
say of such people: "yes, you're going to make it."
It's about time I see some of that in myself. I mean REALLY see it and
see it CLEARLY.

I've been having trouble finishing things and those dares and challenges
and deadlines haven't helped me put a dent into any work of fiction. I'm
still working on the day to day writing because, as I have said in an
earlier entry, that's what I need right now. Those daily victories to
build up a foundation of discipline and writer work ethic and to beat
back procrastination.

Writing is a muscle. It needs to be excercised and conditioned. You
wouldn't go out and run a marathon today if you've been a couch potato
all last year. Kris Rusch has said something like that before. I think
there's truth in that. At least I can see it in my case.

It's too early to be sure of this, but I think I would like to bring a
story into the workshop six weeks consecutively this summer. It will be
like Clarion again. That's what I'm building up towards. I'll see how
the daily progress is going come June.
Perhaps I will be doing a story a week at the same time Clarion is
taking place in East Lansing Michigan. Fellow Web Rat, Trey, will be at
Clarion this year. He's in for one awesome experience.
I'll keep plugging away here.


Sunday, April 9

I think I've been bit by the Clarion bug, or probably more accurately, a
Clarion bug that wants to reminisce about that summer in '93. There was
all that hope and anticipation. My fellow classmates and the instructors
were great.
Check out the Clarion class of 2000. Some of them, anyway. They don't
start Clarion until June and they already have a web page.
I have yet to write today, but yesterday I did get 257 words. Much
reading has been done too.

Now why am I here and not writing?


Monday, April 10

I'll be lucky to make it to the workshop tomorrow night. Tomorrow I'll
be working until dark. It's time to aerify the greens on the golf course
and that's always two very long days. Happens twice a year, once in the
spring, once in the fall. The only time I miss a Tuesday night workshop
is because of this, and I don't miss it every time during aerification.
Sometimes we get done early. Sometimes I'll luck out and we'll aerify on
Monday and Wednesday, with Tuesday off in between. This time it's
Tuesday and Wednesday.

Well, I hope I can get to the workshop to at least pick up the stories
for next week. And to give Eric his critiqued stroy. Hell, it will
probably be Eric who brings in another story. As I have said in an
earlier entry, he's on a roll.
It's tough finding writng time out of a twelve hour plus working day!


Monday, April 17

Hard to believe a week has gone by since I last updated. The week flew
by.
NorWesCon is coming up this weekend in Seattle. I'm planning on going to
that. I't'll be my first time at that Con.
And I hope to get more writing done this week than the last.

More later.


Tuesday, April 18

Day off work today. Did a one hour writing session. The story (a
rewrite): "Ghost In The Machine." This is my story for Dean's Star Trek
anthology, "Strange New Worlds." I sent it in last year for #3, but it
didn't make it in. Understandable, really. I like it enough that I'm
rewriting it for #4. This story deserves a rewrite. "Ghost In The
Machine" involves Data and the ghost of Tasha Yar. If you don't know
Trek, all of this is lost on you. Tasha Yar was killed off at the end of
the first season of Star Trek: Next Generation. She and Data (an
android) had an intimate encounter together. Anyway, approximately seven
years after her death, the Enterprise encounters the Death's-head
anomaly. When Data turns on his emotion chip while in the presence of
the anomaly, Tasha's ghost appears to him. No one else can see her
nor communicate with her except for Data.

I'm working on a new story at the same time as the rewrite to the Trek
story. Why? I have no idea, really. Impatient? Boredom with one, so I
move to the other? Actually, it probably has more to do with my
lackadaisical work habits.

What's interesting about working on these two stories at the same time
is the subject matter. The second story (a non-Trek one), "These
Machines That Mold The Soul," deals with man-machines powered by the
lifeforce otherwise known as the "soul." The machines program human
experience into these souls to make them human. Thus, these man-machines
(or androids, if you will) are much the same as humans. Humans as a
biological machines, and anroids as a mechanical or technical machines.
This story is in the far future. The device used to catch this lifeforce
plays a part in the story as well.
I'm dealing with the human experience in both stories. Also dealing with
souls and artificial life experience. Interesting. I think working on
these two at the same time might actually be helpful, but at the very
least it will be doable.

I don't usually ramble on about specific works like this, be it verbally
or in a public journal, but I must admit it helps me maintain the
excitement for each of those stories.
I can't promise you that it will happen again!


Thursday, April 20

Tomorrow I'll be heading up to Seattle for NorWesCon. I don't know how
it will be, but it should be nice to get away for a change. Patrick and
Honna Swenson of Talebones will be there. Gordon Van Gelder might be
there as well. Then there is Kim Mohan of Amazing who still has a story
of mine.

I'll give you a Con report on Sunday when I get back. Or maybe Monday,
depending on what time I get back on Sunday.
I'm bringing a story to work on. It's a revision of a Christmas short
story that I really need to get done. I don't think I've mentioned that
my writers group is putting together a chapbook called "One Night A
Year." It's a collection of the Christmas short-shorts we read on the
last Tuesday night workshop of every year. It's the only night we don't
critique stories. We just read them aloud to each other. After ten plus
years of doing this, the group is putting together a collection. Mine is
a bit longer than the 1000 word limit, but it's the only Christmas short
I have. I'm going to rewrite it and try to trim off two hundred words or
so. Right now it's 1700 words. And it is one of the stories that has
been sitting on my desk. The story is called "Recall." Think toy recall,
if you haven't done so already.

And speaking of the workshop. Check out my Wordos page. I now have a
picture of some of us. See what we look like. Hopefully, in the future
I'll have a better picture. Perhaps after the Nebula awards in May.
Someone may be coming back with a Nebula and then we'll get a group
picture with the winner and that hunk of lucite. :)


Sunday, April 23

This won't be much of a Con report. NorWesCon was very Con-lite for me.
Sure, I talked to some people I haven't seen awhile, but there were very
few writing panels that I wanted to go to.
I didn't see Kim Mohan at all even though I had heard he was there. No
Gordon Van Gleder.

I didn't get any work done on the story I brought
along. The weekend was low-key and that's just fine. I wasn't expecting much
from NorWesCon. Ray Vukcevich said there were less editors there than
the year before, so I may try it again next year. Besides, like I said
before, I talked to people I haven't seen in awhile.
I won't be going to another Con until World Fantasy at the end of
October. Seems so far away.

Tomorrow, I not only go back to the day job, it's time to write again.


Sunday, April 30

You know, I keep saying I'm going to write entries in here a little more
often. At least more than once a week.
I'm still working on the revision of a story. I can't say I've been
working on it everyday. A busy week for reading workshop stories. We
have FIVE stories to read forTuesday and I better start reading them now
so I can have my critques done by then . . .

More later. Really.