Wednesday, July 4

Yesterday, at workshop, I got my Colonist award. It's a nice thing to get, even though it's not half as cool as the Mad Marvin. The Colonist is just a stepping stone to the Marvin, but I can't totally dismiss the award. It means progress.

Jay Lake was the only one to get a Mad Marvin Award for last quarter.

Two new people showed up to the workshop yesterday. Jerry O told them there is a waiting list. Yes, at this point (close to 30 active members) we do need to do this.

WesterCon is up in Portland this weekend. I'll be going up tomorrow. Should be lots of fun. Lots of people to see. I'll be doing a reading too.

Also, I will be going to World Fantasy in Montreal this November. On a whim, I checked the airfare at Expedia.com. A ticket roundtrip from Portland only costed me $282. That's cheap. I was indecisive about going before, but that settled it.

One other thing helped in the decision. I noticed Robert Charles Wilson was on the list of attending members. Makes sense. I believe he lives in Toronto. Meeting Mr. Wilson would be great. His earlier works like A Hidden Place, A Bridge Of Years, The Divide, Gypsies, The Harvest--all had characters and events that drew me into the stories. Characters so alive and so human. He writes harder science fiction as well like Memory Wire and Bios, but I'm not much of a tech head and that's why I liked the earlier novels better.

I've liked some of his short fiction too. I remember enjoying a story called Extras in an issue of F&SF. His agent is Shawna McCarthy, editor of Realms Of Fantasy. She would be nice to meet as well (if she's there). Not because I need an agent right now, but meeting the editor who bought my first short story would be a rush.

Have a good weekend


Monday, July 9

WesterCon.

Writers and editors roamed the halls and lobbies of the Columbia River and Janzen Beach Double Tree Hotels. Along with, of course, an occasional Klingon and gamer. Two hotels means a lot of ground to cover to find a person or to just bump into someone. I saw the Swensons of Talesbones only a few times--where were they hiding all weekend? Tim Powers was busy being guest of honor, but at least I got to say hello. I said hello to Kris and briefly chatted with Dean and the they left the Con on Saturday night. I visited Marina Fitch and Mark Budz at the Locus table (and renewed my subscription), but I didn't see them outside the dealer room until Saturday night.

As expected, my reading (and Leslie's) had low attendence. What do you expect at ten AM on Saturday morning? Nina Hoffman showed up and Alsa, sister in law of Wordo Alan. Leslie began the hour with a story about sex with Pez dispensers. How's that for a wake up call! Let me just say this story had a dispenser with a Yoda head and I'll never look at Yoda or a Pez dispenser the same. Then I read "Shattered." I had rewritten this story (tweaked it, really) on Wednesday, the day before the con and I was tweaking it Friday, and I think I'll do more tweaking yet. Anyway, Leslie and Nina had read a previous version of this story, but they didn't remember it. The audience of three liked it. I call it a success.

Saturday night was the highlight of the Con. Ray's short story collection, Meet Me In The Moon Room, is out. Published by Small Beer Press, the same people that brought you Kelly Link's collection. I've read more than one Web Rat mentioning Link's collection and Ray highly reccommends it.

Anyhoo, Leslie and Nina had the idea to promote Ray's book. Writers On Rugs was a popular attraction at WesterCon in Spokane two years ago. Since then, the bear skin rug has gone on to other things and was replaced with an alien skin rug. I'll be bold enough to say it's a good thing the bear (I think its name was Bucky) isn't around anymore. The alien skin rug is perfect match for promoting a book called Meet Me In The Moon Room.

Ray and I shared a room. We had a room in the non-party hotel, but we needed a room for the Meet Me In The Moon Room party, so we took the risk of holding this event in ours. Devon's sister, Deanne, made a moonscape backdrop, complete with a view of Earth. We moved the beds and furniture and tacked that backdrop on the wall. We filled the tub with soda, bottled water, and beer. Snacks were laid out. Beer was poured in dixie cups (Small Beer Press, you know). Wigs and other props were made available. The room no longer looked like a boring hotel room. It was The Moon Room.

The covers (in post card form) of Ray's collection and Kelly's were spread out throughout the room. I know at least Ray's cover was given with each framed poloroid shot. $3.00 per picture, by the way.

Fifty poloroids were taken of Con goers in The Moon Room (either with or without Ray, either with or without alien skin rug). The pictures were more popular than the snacks, soda, and beer. All the bottled water was consumed because the room was HOT! The air conditioning wasn't working and all the body heat didn't help.

Do you want to see Algis Budrys in The Moon Room on a alien skin rug? Yes, the same guy that reads the stories you send to Writers Of The Future.

Let me direct you to: The Moon Room. Leslie What has some pictures on display.

The party (no, I mean meeting) lasted from 8:30 to 11:00 pm. The moonscape was taken down and the furniture was moved back into place. It looked like a boring hotel room again. And housekeeping didn't suspect a thing.

The best news of all, by the end of the Con, every single copy of Ray's collection AND Kelly's sold out in the dealer's room. Now that's promotion!



Sunday, July 15

I feel productive, writing-wise, after this weekend. While I only wrote one page (250 words) on Saturday, I churned out 1100 words today. I made an effort to break down the wall of inertia that has been in front of me for the last month. Now I just have to write again tomorrow.

I do this a lot. I'll get a streak of several days where I don't miss a day of writing. Then I'll miss one, then two, and before I know it, inertia sets in. As a result I'll have low word counts each month. Seems like I only get one streak of writing per month with two or three more days of writing many days apart from each other.

To break down that wall of inertia, more than 250 words is needed. In fact, I wonder if I should shoot for 1K a day just to feel healthy and productive. I also do that a lot. I'll be productive and my confidence and ambition goes through the roof. I'll go for the Mad-Marvin, I'll sign my name on every Tuesday until October in the workshop calender. I feel like I'll never miss another day of writing. Now that's not realistic.

One day at a time. I at least have to feel good about today.

Today, I wrote.

Monday, July 16

Another day of writing--that makes three in a row. Today: 686 words

I've been setting the timer for 15 minute sessions and shooting for a page (250 words) in that time. I've been doing at least four of those. I've been putting down 150-200 words in those fifteen minutes, but I hope to build up to a page and beyond. The story I'm writing is new and as I get further into it I'll pick up some speed.

Usually I'll take a break between sessions and today the breaks didn't last long. Just long enough to fill the coffee cup or answer the call from nature. Once I jumped from one session right into the next.

I'm excited about getting this story down on the page.

I have a short-short almost ready for tomorrow. We'll be reading these 500 word things aloud at workshop tomorrow night. Bruce Holland Rogers gave a talk last week about writing short-shorts. It was a good talk and we did some writing excercises, but I wonder if it would be better to critique these things instead of reading them aloud. Oh well, I'm just going with the flow.

The short-short counts towards the Mad-Marvin.

Sunday, July 22

I read a short-short for the short-short read aloud at the workshop last Tuesday.

I may have to hand in another short-short for critique this coming Tuesday. writing went great the first part of last week. Now, this weekend I haven't gotten anything done. Being tired is a problem. Last Tuesday I went out to Pegasus Pizza with everyone else after the workshop. I don't usually do this because I have to get up at 4 am, but it's nice to go out sometimes. Well, I got four hours of sleep that night. I have no problem with going to work with that amount of sleep. It's the writing after work that suffers. By the afternoon, the lack of sleep has caught up with me. This weekend I had very little sleep at night as well.

I can operate ok on five or six hours, but when it gets down to four, I function at a lower level. Why must I be a sleep-whore?

Sunday, July 29

I've written more words in the last two weeks of July than all of May and June put together. Well, that may not be quite right since I don't have the word counts in front of me, but it's something like that. For me, this is impressive.

This isn't to say I never miss a day of writing. I've missed several. Never more than two days in a row. I have low word count days, as low as eighty words, two of those, but the next level is one page, two hundred and fifty words. I've broken one thousand words a time or two. Average would be around five hundred.

I've learned writing short-shorts (500 words) is a good way to get in touch with the innocence of being NEW to writing. Spontaneous, letting go, and letting it flow.

I've brought two short-shorts to the workshop. And I may hand in another this Tuesday. Not many markets for 500 words stories.

There are two kinds of inertia. One kind is not writing for days and finding it difficult to get started writing anything. The other kind is plodding along on the new story, slow enough to lose the excitement and energy and forgetting what you loved about it in the first place.

Some stories seem too important to me and I hesitate. These stories are perfect in my head and if the words don't come out perfect it gets frustrating.

There's an urgent need to give up on that perfection and return to "just letting it flow." That's usually easier said than done. Just some odd ramblings from Writing Progress . . .

Tuesday, July 31

Today I wrote sixteen hundred words and then cut away four hundred words and thus I handed in a twelve hundred word story to the workshop. 1600 words? Did I do that?

It's hard to believe. It didn't seem hard. I had some images in my mind for a long time and maybe that helped the writing.

I keep stalling on this other story, but I'd like to plow through it and get it down on the page and call it done and hand it in to the workshop for critique.

I'll keep working at this week. Next week I could be handing in a story of 3,000 words, maybe even 5,000.