Sunday, October 1

I got a story to Writers Of The Future last night. That feels good.

For all my talk about Trek stories, I did not get one story sent to Strange New Worlds. Blah. Couldn't get past a couple of logic problems in a rewrite. This does not feel good.
What else does feel good? Having my first sale, of course.

Goals. What are some goals for October? Mmmmmm.

Tuesday night should be a fun workshop with Eric's first sale. He was thrilled to hear I mentioned him in my journal. Congrats again, Eric!


Sunday, October 8

Hey!

Let me tell you about the workshop last Tuesday. I did for Eric what Bruce did for me. I brought the champagne for a toast to Eric's first sale. Nina brought poppers--little champagne bottle shaped things that shoot confetti when you pull a string. We had three stories to critique that night. The news portion of the workshop got kind of long, so Eric suggested we do the champagne toast after critiques. While Eric has been soaking up the good feelings of a first sale, it was professional of him to decide to wait on the champagne. It worked out good that way. And a bunch of us still went out for a beer afterwards.

This year, so far, we've had three first sales. Dianna Rodgers, Eric Witchey, and I. It's been a very good year.

And the workshop is just getting warmed up. There's a new surge in drive and ambition. FOUR more stories are to be critiqued next week. One thing that will fan the flames are the Wordo awards.

There is the "Wordos Lift-off Award" for the first short fiction sale. Those awards were handed out last Tuesday. It's a thin rectangular block of lucite with the name of the story, where published/sold, the title of the award, and artwork of a guy riding a rocket. It's pretty cool. If I ever get a picture of it, I'll post it.

We're going to start to have quarterly awards. There is the "Wordo Mad Marvin Award" for 9-12 stories submitted to the workshop in a quarter. There's the Explorer, 6-8 submissions. Then there is the Colonist, 4-6 submissions a quarter. The Mad Marvin you may have guessed has a base with Marvin The Martian on top. These awards are suppose to get people to hand in more stories, to practice. I think it will work. There's a few people that want a Mad Marvin. Motivation, motivation, motivation. The first quarter started October 3.

Three plaques will go up in the bookstore. The owners of the store (Tsunami Books) are great and are glad to have us there. One is for first short story sales with names of the sellers listed. And one for first novel sales with names of the sellers. Also one for winners of Nebulas, Stokers, and the like.

Also, Alan Roberts decided to start up The Race again. It's a point system. You add up how many manuscripts you have in the mail. Someone compiles the results and lists them on our listserver. Now this isn't designed for competition between writers. It's to push people to get things out in the mail.

Things are cooking here in Eugene.

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I only have two stories out at the moment. I have two ready to go back out right now. I've started a new story today. Hopefully, this will be my next submission to Realms Of Fantasy. I'm planning on getting it workshoped at Damon and Kate's next Saturday. Then rewrite it between Sunday and Tuesday, and hand the rewrite in to the workshop.

It looks like I'm going to World Fantasy after all. I was concerned I wasn't going to find a cheap enough plane ticked, but I still hesitated giving an official no-go. On expedia.com last week I checked once and got a fare to Corpus Christi, TX. for $534. An hour or so later I checked again. I got a price of $312! So I booked it. Before I could pay I got a message the price had changed. $322! Well, hell, that's still a good price. So I got it. I sent my membership payment to World Fantasy.

Our workshop will have five members there this year. One of them (Nina) has a story on the award ballot.

While at WFC I'll get to see fellow Web Rat, Julia. And I thought I read in Melanie's journal that she was going too. So that's cool. I missed a mini Web Rat get together at WorldCon in Chicago this year.

World Fantasy is less than three weeks away.


Tuesday, October 24

I'm amazed how much time I let slip by since last update.

Tomorrow night, right after midnight, I leave for World Fantasy in Corpus Christi, Texas. I promise to come back and post a con report. I'll be back late Sunday night. Probably won't update the journal until Monday night.

Our next Tuesday night workshop is on Halloween, so we're going to have a ghost story read aloud. A thousand words or less. Should be a fun night. I'll start writing mine in a notebook during World Fantasy weekend. I've been known to write a bit during a convention.

Six stories handed in the workshop tonight. We'll critque those two weeks from tonight. Productivity is at an all time high.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting on stories that should be back in the mail. I need to commit, not only to sending stories, but also to finishing current work for progress for workshop. Things to think about when I'm going to a convention surrounded by professional writers.

Have a good weekend.