The author, his writings, and his warped little mind.
The CW forum shows that people are starting to get rejection emails. I don’t have one yet. I’ll be checking my email fifty times today. Usually when I do that it’s because I want to get an email. Not today.
So hope exists for CW, but its glimmer is quite dim.
-Oso
Leslie Howle, Clarion West director, posted a message in the CW forum. she said good stuff about how many deserving candidates they have this year and how hard the selection process has been…but the part I found most interesting was her statement about how they would finalize the class this week. *swallows hard* So Clarion should be letting people know by Friday and CW is letting people know by…what, Saturday? Monday at the latest.
So it’s down to the wire. Things aren’t looking good for me and Clarion. Apparently Clarion east acceptees are being asked to keep things quiet until everyone has been contacted, so who knows how many of those slots are left. I wait as calmly as I can (which is not very) for the phone to ring. It hasn’t yet.
I haven’t given up. The CW list only has about six or seven names. I’ll get through this week, then know what my summer holds. Fast track to professional markets, or the slow track. That’s pretty much the difference.
-Oso
Not knowing. Damn I hate not knowing. I wait and I wait. I try not to get disappointed as fewer than half the acceptances have come forward from Clarion West and none from East (though I suspect some calls have been made). The uncertainty mixed with the hope mixed with the pressure…I can’t focus.
I put my daughter to bed last night and was too choked up to sing to her. Part of it was the pressure of not knowing. Part of it was the desire to actually leave her for six weeks. Do I really want to do that? Of course not, but I do want to attend a Clarion. Unless I wait until she’s a teen and doesn’t want me around, I’m going to have to leave her for a while. It sucks. Thinking about it was hard. Strangely, the feeling that it might not happen that way (if I am not accepted) made it even harder last night.
Knowing my wife doesn’t want me to go makes it even tougher. She wants me to get the experience, but not leave. Double-edged sword. She doesn’t really understand my writing. Her love is photography and she has made a small business out of it. She knows I want to do that with writing but seems to doubt the reality of that idea. Knowing how much she and I will have to sort out if I get accepted (who will help her with our two-year-old, where is all the money coming from, how will we keep in touch,…) makes the anticipation worse since the stress of that conversation will be for naught if I don’t get in.
I know my skills are at a point where Clarion (east or west) will push me onto the fast track to pro publication. Did the stories I submitted represent enough of those skills? Hard to say. The folks at Baen’s Bar suggest my CW story had very stilted dialog and a pretty harsh deux ex machina. Not promising. I never saw my dialog as stilted (forcing background information the characters wouldn’t really be talking about into their dialog) as much as it was conveniently sarcastic. *sigh* No point in fretting over things now. I work well under pressure, but there’s no pressure here, just anticipation. All I can do is wait and second-guess myself. Bad.
My work on the Kree story has ground to a halt. Anticipation has given me writer’s block. NO! I know an acceptance will unblock me. Will a pair of rejections? It will clear the anticipation but not likely help my confidence. Maybe I just need to power through it, finish the story in all narrative summary if I must, just get the idea down. Maybe I need to take up smoking.
That’s all for now as I suffer through the last few days of waiting. I keep praying that God’s will be done in this, not my own. That doesn’t help my waiting but may help how I deal later on.
-Oso
I wanted to rush out opening weekend, but I’m too old for that kind of thing. Me in a packed theater with a hundred people who could already tell you what they did wrong before the previews started…nope. Mostly because I couldn’t get a sitter.
Let me preface my opinions with the fact that I have never read the graphic novel. I have only read blurb comments from other reviewers. This is 99% my own unbiased theatrical experience.
It was awesome.
This film will stay logged as an example of character development. Heroes always have dark pasts, but the differences in how they deal with the darkness is stunning. I will try to stay spoiler-free, so if I reveal something, it’s because it happens early. Like the Comedian’s death. It was a stroke of brilliance on someone’s part that a character that dies in the opening sequence can be as vile as you can make him without havng to worry about lost sympathy. No matter how much I disliked him, I didn’t have to worry about his comeuppance; it already happened. And his jaded, villainous character was still unquestionably a hero. The casting for him was excellent.
In fact, all the casting was great. Ozymandias may have been a little on the model side, but it kind of worked. The nerdy Nite Owl, the too sexy to be that naked Silk Spectre…but Rorschach stole the show for me. Hard core to the verge of evil yet held fast to a very personal code. The subtle elements (like Nite Owl’s problem with…wait, no spoilers) were nicely worked in and believable.
Let’s not forget Dr. Manhattan. I told my wife I was going to shave my body and paint myself blue for Halloween. She laughed. Apparently I lack his physique. It’s good to know, however, that if I am atomized in some nuclear experiment and come back glowing blue, at least I will be anatomically correct. No Ken dolls here. Anyway, his character was interesting in his alienness, especially the struggle to maintain humanity. I think that could have been done better (read: more subtly), but it was pretty good as it was. He maintains concern (at least feigned) for humanity while losing his ability to connect with anyone human-to-human. No more on that, but again, this is all setup, not major storyline developments.
The film’s execution was fantastic, a little CGI heavy at moments, moments that really called attention to the moments of CGI-free action. In otherwords, I felt a couple soundstages looked like soundstages (burning building) while other scenes looked like screensavers (that big thing of Manhattan’s). But 90% of the film maintained a good balance. The shots that were ripped straight from comic art were excellent.
I can’t talk about the movie without talking about what caught me most off guard: the sex. Nite owl gets naked (with a glimpse of everything), Silk Spectre gets naked (thank you for that), Dr. Manhattan is usually naked, and there are some other moments more Desperate Houswives than they are HBO. As my wife put it, “I didn’t expect that much naked. It wasn’t all just gratuitous flesh; the scenes were plot-line appropriate and tastefully done (except for the one that wasn’t supposed to be tasteful). My wife and I both approved. She also approved of the taste of reality the women’s bodies had (faces had wrinkles, breasts were not plastic, etc.). All in all, a nice tablespoon of sex to go with the plateful of violence.
There were images that were quite graphic (violence side here, we stopped talking about sex; keep up). Blades, broken bones, doge, innards…but nothing so grotesque as to churn my notoriously weak stomach. I cringed but never cowered. I probably have a higher threshold for violence in my cinema than many people, but my threshold for gore is at or below population average. Still, some harsh situations (Rorschach’s backstory, Comedian and Jupiter). I get worse feelings watching 24 on FOX.
To sum up, it was an excellent movie for those that likedark and gritty in their superhero stories. It’s got great character development, varied characters, a much more complete story than 300, more grit than any X-men movie ever will, the right dose of sex for audiences that believe such exists, and no big name actors to pack the seats. That’s right, none. Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre) will probably make it big off of this and Jackie Earle Haley’s notoriety should spike (Rorschach), as should Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s (Comedian or Denny on Grey’s Anatomy). Those are my predictions. I also expected Lord of the Rings to make a box office draw out of Viggo Mortenson…so consider my track record.
That’s all for now. I may break it down a bit more in the future, say when the BluRay comes out. So much more to say but I don’t want to spoil it. Especially you writers out there, watch this film. It’s good.
-Oso
My blog has been stagnant a few days, hasn’t it? Why? Well, nothing is happening. I’m making progress on my first draft of “Kree” (still no better title…it really needs one), but that’s about it. No news from workshops, no useful blogging of others being accepted. Squat. As best I can tell, West has 15 slots still unassigned (well, maybe unawarded would be better worder; I bet they’re assigned by now) and East has all 18. I expect news from the latter this week if they are to meet their own deadline of March 20th (Friday). But what am I going to do if they run long, refuse an invitation? I don’t think so. West, on the other hand, has conflicting statements on their website. In the FAQ it says applicants will hear by mid-March while the workshop page says the end of March. Forum posts from people in the know have validated the later date.
So what to do now? I was watching television with my 2-year-old daughter and her show offered me advice (while I was typing on the CW forum, no less): “When waiting is really hard for you, just do something you like to do!” Thank you, Kai-Lan. So I am reading (John Kessel’s award-winning novella “Stories for Men”), writing (that Kree story), spending time with my daughter (she just got a Sit-n-Spin), and going to see The Watchmen tomorrow afternoon (reviews are everywhere, but I’ll surely add my $.02 here afterward).
-Oso
You know you’ve read some. It may have been a big shot who sells millions or some guy that got into a magazine because the editor was experimenting with herbology, but bad sf/f/h is out there making big bucks. I haven’t decided what I think about that.
On the one hand, I am very unhappy that some jerk out there cashed a check with mutiple zeros when I know I have stories — novels even — that are much better. Why him (or her or it) and not me? The reasons are there: 1) luck, 2) perseverence, 3) previous success, 4) connections, 5) maybe I just don’t get it.
Then there’s the flip side. If this putz can gsell, I can, too. It’s a reminder that success is 98% perspiration (and that stinks). So reading some schlock can give me a boost of hope even as it knocks down my self esteem.
What made me think of this? Christopher Paolini. Nice enough guy as far as I can tell, one of my students is obsessed with him, but he needs a good editor with sharp scissors. At least he needed it in Eldest, his second novel. I enjoyed Eragon enough to buy Eldest. I even enjoyed the story enough to buy Brisingr (gesundheit). I did not enjoy it enough to get past page 2 of…that third book I can’t pronounce.
I think Paolini summarized my concern himself in Eldest when — on about page 300 — a character observes how lucky they are to have traveled from wherever to wherever and nothing happened.
**By the way, [SPOILER ALERT!!!]**
I further had issues with the protagonist’s efforts to become a worthy dragon rider by learning combat from an elf despite a serious injury that limits him physically and causes constant pain. This training occurs intermittently while subtle relationships in the story are hinted at but never truly developed. Of course the training helps him to improve, but he can just barely go through the motions.
Then it happens, some fancy dragon festival where ghostly dragons emanate and heal the protagonist of his wounds. Yes, all of them. Because he struggled so hard? No. Because he was innately worthy. Wasn’t he innately worthy before a bunch of pages and my personal hours were wasted on combat training? I suspect he was. The character succeeds through the entire book despite never having any breakthroughs of his own.
Not what I want in a story. I’ve been rejected for less. But I didn’t self-publish a book that was successful enough to be picked up by a major publisher. Will I one day? Maybe. Then some other wannabe can complain about my schlock on his blog.
-Oso
Can it be true? Realms of Fantasy, recently announced as deceased, has apparently been purchased by another company, Tir Na Nog Press, this according to SFScope.com and this announcement. According to the article, editors should be kept in place and rates for stories should also remain consistent.
Whenever I see news this good miraculously appear online, I fear it is a hoax. This seems legit. The deal apparently went down today and the news is already everywhere. This means we will NOT be losing one of the classic professional speculative magazines. Hoorah.
Now a confession. I have never read a copy of Realms of Fantasy. I had a subscription to F&SF and before that, Analog, but I don’t think I have so much as been in the same room with an issue of Realms. A single consumer can only do so much. I will look for this new May issue (expected next issue, missing only one) in bookstores near me so I can show my support. I have also never submitted there as their guidelines always made it clear that they weren’t looking for new writers.
So is the resurrection of Realms a coup for the genre? Absolutely. Will it affect me personally? Sure. There will be more markets buying stories, increasing my chances (infinitessimally) of professional publication. I don’t have to print in Realms to reap this benefit. Every time Realms buys a great story, it’s one I don’t have to compete against in another mag. A selfish view? Absolutely. Nevertheless, I’m glad it’s back.
-Oso
Once my Clarion applications were submitted (maybe a little before), I started hunting books and stories by the instructors for both workshops. Some of that is covered in my earlier post, Treasures from the Book Cellar. I bought a collection of John Kessel’s early stuff, Meetings at Infinity, Rudy Rucker’s Software, Kim Stanley Robinson’s first two Mars books, an audiobook of Robert Crais’s The Forgotten Man… Most of it was used (sorry for not supplying a royalty) so I could still afford to eat those weeks. Only later did I start sifting through the few short story collections I already own.
John Kessel is everywhere. I am embarrassed to say I had never paid much attention to his name before writing my application. He’s in the Year’s Best book I have, he’s in Paragons, he’s in my Best Time Travel Science Fiction of the 20th Century (I think…I don’t remember; I’ll double check when I get home and edit here if I blew it). I had four or five of his stories just lying around the house. Still, I’m glad I got his collection.
UPDATE: Yes, Kessel has a story in the time travel book, “The Pure Product”.
I’ve had trouble finding a few authors. I’m trying to find them on my own instead of hunting them through their websites or Wikipedia entries (though I cheated with Kessel). I finally stumbled across an Elizabeth Bear story in Strange Horizons’ fiction archives. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll get to it this week. I haven’t found Nalo Hopkinson yet. I’ll hunt her work more aggressively if I get accepted to CW.
The Clarion (east) crowd has been tougher to find. I saw the movie based on Holly Black’s and Robert Crais’ work (The Spiderwick Chronicles and Hostage) respectively. I have verified that my school library has some of Black’s books and I’ll read some if I end up going to San Diego. (My reading time is getting stretched thin trying to keep up with both!) Park, Hand, and Lai just don’t seem to cross paths where I am looking. Again, acceptance to east will get me hunting more aggressively.
I am also trying to keep up with other writers often associated with Clarion. Knight and Wilhelm are the most obvious pair. I read Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed a couple years ago, mostly from its recommendation in Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.
So my reading is keeping me busy. I am also working on my females-as-warriors story (tentatively titled “Kree” until I get a better feel for its theme) and checking the web fifty times a day for evidence of Clarion acceptances. I think it may be time to switch to decaf.
-Oso
Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in years: I flew a kite. It wasn’t an elaborate kite, just a one dollar Wal-Mart special with a picture of Elmo. It was my wife’s idea that my daughter would enjoy it. As usual, my wife was right. Abby wanted to hold the string the whole time and was very upset when the kite came down (which happened frequently in the gusty day). It was a nice bonding moment. I will get Elmo out again soon.
It was an experience I wanted to share with people, maybe write a story with such a scene, but I don’t think I can do it. I could describe the actions, but there is no describing the feeling a parent experiences sharing a moment with their child. The best I could hope to accomplish would be to stir that emotion in people who have experienced something similar. It made me feel inadequate as a writer.
I am an inadequate writer, don’t get me wrong, but writers are supposed to write the stuff they feel it is important to share. Really, it can’t be done.
Maybe I take the writer’s mission statement too literally. Maybe it is most important that I make it clear that the character feels this, whether the reader feels it themselves could be irrelevant. Negative emotions and sensations are so much simpler: anger, frustration, pain, defeat, sadness. You don’t have to have had your fingernails removed with needle-nosed pliers to appreciate the description in a story. I’m not sure the mix of love, pride, accomplishment, and giving shares that potential.
I am making it a goal to write a story including that kind of moment. I’m not ready right now, but I want to do it. Maybe at Clarion (east or west, whichever comes through) when my idea bank starts emptying out, when my skills are sharp and my wits are dull. It doesn’t have to be a kite, maybe give the experience a speculative twist. A wizard teaching his child to levitate objects. A tribal alien sharing a first hunt with its offspring.
Think how many more experiences like this I have opportunities to enjoy. Riding a bike, driving a car (way in the future), first love letter, first fishing trip (Mom may be better at that). O am overwhelmed. It makes me feel guilty for the number of days I’ve let slip by without sharing something new with her. She is only two. How many things can I expect her to appreciate right now?
It also makes me feel guilty for hoping so vehemently to leave her for six weeks this summer. I did not stop being my own person when she was born, I need to continue pursuing my own dreams as well as hers, but I still feel like a heel. I bet I could write that feeling into a story, selfishness and shame.
This is not usually what I do with this blog. You are not my therapist. I just felt this needed to be shared, so here it is. I promise something more upbeat next time.
-Oso
I have still not heard anything about Clarion or Clarion West. I have met no writers. I have not sold any new stories of late. But somehow I feel like I am starting to become part of a community of writers.
Part of it is the blog connection. I’m still pretty new at all this and seeing other writers’ blogs and reading them and linking to them and knowing they are dropping by here…it’s all so warm and fuzzy.
Another part is the shared anticipation I am experiencing with all the writers on the CW forums (except Jordan, that show-off 😀 ) as we wait for the phone to ring. The shared experience of simply applying for the workshop is bonding. Imagine what the actual workshop will do…
But I am happy with the bonding I am experiencing now. I feel like I am a writer. Only a barrel of sales would make me feel more like one. I’ll get to work on that now.
-Oso
Scott W. Baker .net 