Month: March 2010

Rocketing through classics

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

A little browsing on Netflix brought me to a series of DVDs called Rocketbooks.  They seem to be some combination of onscreen text, audio text, and commentary of the form of Cliff’s Notes or Spark Notes.  I’m not 100% sure on that; it could just be text on the screen and reading aloud, but one DVD doesn’t seem long enough for that.  I am recording my pre-viewing commentary here for posterity.  Tomorrow I’ll provide a follow-up post with more accurate descriptions as well as some commentary on the quality.

I received the first of the Rocketbooks in the mail today: The Great Gatsby.  It’s a book I always heard great things about but never got around to reading.  I intend to view it after my wife goes to bed (as she has no interest in reviewing literature or teaching English classes).  I am eagerly curious about what mysteries this DVD will unlock.  I hope it’s worth the effort.

Ugh

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

I wrote another few hundred words today.  I hate them all.  I feel like I’ve dislocated my writing bone.  Wasn’t like that yesterday.

I have a bad feeling I’m going to have to formalize an outline and some character sketches and do a lot of prewriting before I hit this project full bore.  I haven’t worked that way in a long time.  That’s going to postpone my 5000 words a week, but every step I take with the planning should speed up the actual writing process, not to mention improve the quality.  Time to shake the short story tools out of my head and bring in the jaws of novel.  I’ve elected to write like a big boy; that means hard work.

But it’s bedtime now.  I’ll start tomorrow.

New Beginnings

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Well, I’ve done it.

Okay, nothing is done, but I’ve started doing it.  I have made my selection from the scattered array of unfinished novels in my drawers (sounds like I keep them in my underwear, doesn’t it?) and I have decided to attack my YA SF novel.  An interesting choice since I had so little written already (only about 5000 words) and was really stuck on where to take it when I put it down.

I could have gone with the military clone novel which had six well-received chapters written.  Or redrafted the (finished) YA fantasy that was my very first writing project.  Or the fantasy novella that I was in the process of expanding to novel length.  Or that novella’s prequel that was showing more promise despite less progress.  Or the Roller Ball-esque SF sport novel I started eons ago.  Okay, the sport one was no more logical than the choice I made, but there are real arguments for the others over the one I picked.  So let’s reason things out.

The reason I didn’t run with the military novel is, well, I have no military experience.  Sure, “Poison Inside the Walls: was somewhat militaristic, but I really think I may save the clone one for a collaboration project.  (Brad, you taking notes?  Just saying…)  I also feel like I have a better track record with science fiction than with fantasy, so that’s the road I’m paving first.  Still, I’m not abandoning fantasy; that’s what got me writing in the first place.

I feel like I have a fairly solid perspective for writing this SF novel.  As a teacher, I have an interesting perspective for viewing teen behavior.  And the fact that it’s going to have a lot of scholastic settings (not so unlike Harry Potter, but on a sublight ship rather than in a magic castle) will give me that much more perspective.

The problem with my first draft was that it started too slow and too fast all at once.  There was no action to speak of, not on-screen action, but I tried to catapult froschool boy to space cadet in a single chapter.  Whew.  Again I’m taking a page from J.K. Rowling and letting the story set up a little while I draw out the drama of going into space.  (Relax, my similarities should end there.)  I was thinking like a short story writer and not like a novelist.

So today I got to work on the rewrite of the first chapter.  I only finished one scene, but it was a good three pages or so, nothing to sneeze at.  I open with my main character getting bullied rather than having him whisked away from school in a police car.  (Yeah, yeah, HP gets bullied in the beginning too.  So what?)  The drama in the old draft was too far removed from my protagonist.  Now it’s in his face.  Literally.  A rough outline of events will get the story to where I had previously left off, but the character will be fully developed by then and that point will mark the beginning of his change.

I’m setting myself a goal of 5000 words per week to get this done.  At that rate, it should take about a month to get the story where it left off before and another twelve weeks to get the draft finished.  80,000 is a good word count for young adult, isn’t it?  So that puts me into July.  However, summer should provide ample opportunities to speed up the process.  With luck, I’ll be celebrating my first draft on the same night everyone else in America is setting off their own fireworks.

So it’s a new start, a new first chapter, a few new goals to meet.  C’mon muse, don’t fail me now.

Reading for Analysis

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I am in the stages of preparing for the two exams that would allow me to teach English and be “highly qualified”.  In doing so, I need to expand my knowledge of the literature “frequently taught in high school”.  Some of it I know (the Hobbit, Romeo & Juliet, Scarlet Letter), some I knew (To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, Our Town), some I have secondhand knowledge of (Great Gatsby, The Crucible, A Streetcar Named Desire), and some I just don’t know (Joy Luck Club, Grapes of Wrath, Great Expectations).  I want to bring my “knew-it” stories back up to the surface, get a fuller picture of the “secondhand-knowledge” stories, and get a few clues on the “don’t-know-it” stories.  I’m not well-read enough.  I doubt Orson Scott Card and Asimov will be on the tests (though Tolkein and Orwell could be).

Now I pause to laugh at the idea of me being “highly qualified” to teach English classes.  Sure, I am probably as qualified as anyone to teach a high school creative writing class (the reason I’m taking the test), but not literature.  I can’t analyze a poem to save my life.  Looking at my expertise in math and comparing it to my background in literature, it’s a joke to think I can teach the latter.  I simply can’t.  It’s a phantom status that means nothing.  A properly trained and educated English teacher would kick my butt in the teaching of…well, anything.  Grammar, lit, literary movements, authors…  The only thing I have is a reasonable knowledge of what it takes to sell a manuscript.  Even that is pretty narrowly focused.  (Note that knowing how to sell and actually selling are two different beasts; I have some of each.)  So I can teach how to write and how to sell, even how to use grammar, but that shouldn’t qualify (highly or not) me to teach literature.

Why the rant?  well I have this fear that one day I’ll have to teach an English class.  I get forced into enough math classes I don’t want to teach (anything full of failure kids or non-college-bound students is like herding radioactive tomcats), I don’t need to free myself up to gain new classes I don’t want.  I do want to teach the writing — why else would I take the test? — but not a regular English class.  Shouldn’t the desire to teach be part of the “highly qualified” formula?

Aftershocks

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

It was one hell of a earth-shaking to not make Clarion West. I thought I recovered from it pretty well, facing front and moving forward.  I haven’t done any writing since then, but that’s more a time issue than anything (I’m seriously backlogged on grades).

Then the CW networking baegan at the CW forum.  Hey, they need to network.  I want them to network.  But now I know why private forums are usually set up for groups like this.

I am very pleased to see some friends made it into CW.  Sandra I met last year on the forum.  Tracie and I frequent each others’ blogs.  KC is a fellow WotF 26 writer.  I chatted with Frank some the past few weeks.  I am proud of all of them and wish them the best.

But there’s a sinking feeling in my chest when I see their excitement and know I’m not part of it.

I don’t deserve to be at CW more than any of the people that made it.  I’m not that narcissistic.  I wouldn’t even claim to want it more than any of them.  How would I know?  Several days of 300+ hits here suggest a lot of people wanted it pretty badly.  But now I’m on the outside looking in at the people I was sharing this tension with, this buildup.

It means nothing, in the long run.  Not being selected means that someone didn’t like my story/stories.  There will always be people who don’t like my stories.

I am getting tired of a lot of the condolences being past my way.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the sentiment and the people offering them, but the cliche of it all gets old, like hearing the same line repeated in the receiving line at a funeral.

There are tons of pro writers that didn’t go to Clarion.  This is a fact and I accept it.  How many of those writers tried to go to Clarion and were rejected?  Twice?  Even dropped from waitlist to rejected?

You should definitely apply next year.  That’s basically telling me that my career will be the same place next year that it is this year, that I might as well start piling hopes in the same place they fell from this year.  I’d like to think I can get enough momentum going into (and out of) WotF that I won’t need Clarion next year (though may find it in my schedule a few years later, since I don’t expect a career explosion overnight).

I really thought you were going to make it.  Yeah?  So did I.  I guess that makes us both wrong.  That’s probably part of the problem: I was so sure I would make it.  I would never be that sure sending a story to Analog or F&SF; why would Clarion be any different?  Karma and hubris don’t get along.

So I wish the CW and C-SD crews well, but I’ve got to take a few steps back.  I won’t be visiting the CW forums anymore, at least not for a good long while.  I do want to extend a big thanks to Ken for his kind words on that forum (despite hitting most of the above); it means a lot to know that I was part of other people’s journey, regardless of how it ends.

Once again, I feel very alone as a SF writer in Tennessee.  It was nice, for a little while, to feel like part of something bigger.

Life After Clarion Rejection

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 10 Comments

The world didn’t stop turning; the seas did not boil; the chicken in my freezer didn’t even thaw.  Life goes on, both the real life and the writer life.

I got some well-timed good news from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.  They are holding “Secondhand Rush” for potential publication.  For those not familiar with ASIM’s process, stories go through two rounds of approval before entering the holding pool.  I’ve had stories rejected in both rounds 1 and 2; this marks my first trip to the story pool.  This means they like my story well enough to publish it.  It does NOT mean they will buy it.

They say only 1 in 3 held stories will make it into print.  Editorship is passed around issue to issue among their editorial staff and one of them just has to pick my story and put it in the mag.  Stories are held for three months.  If no one picks my story in that time, it will be released back to me to submit elsewhere.  This story was my WotF Q3 story and earned an Honorable Mention.

ASIM is an Australian semi-pro magazine, but a well respected one with reasonable but not professional rates.  This story will pull in about $50 if it sells, adjusted for exchange rates.  Nowhere near what I’d pull down from a pro market and lightyears from the WotF prize money, but a lot better than the $1-5 I’ve pulled in for other stories.  And it would be the second biggest feather in my cap to date (after WotF, obviously).

In other topics, I need to figure out what to do with my summer now that it isn’t devoured by a workshop.  I may try to get into a one-week workshop (like OSC’s Boot Camp), but more likely I’ll save the money and write on my own.  I am looking into cons, as I said I would.  The most promising seems to be ConCarolinas in Charlotte.  I have a friend there I might even crash with to save on hotel money (maybe one night and crash at the hotel the other).  He might even go with me.  It’s the DeepSouthCon this year (roughly the equivalent of being the Monday Night Football game with increased hype and attention) and I think that has/will improve the guest list.  Jerry Pournelle is the guest of honor.  That alone is worth the trip.  I may get to meet him at WotF in August, too.

I think I’ll send an email to ConCarolinas expressing interest in being on a panel.  As a WotF winner, I should have the pedigree to slip into one.  It would be cool but intimidating.  It’ll be a large-ish con (not like DragonCon, which I intend to go to every year and have never made it), so I may or may not warrant a seat.  We’ll see.

I’ve never actually been to a con.  It will be an experience, to say the least.  I’m eager to give it a try.  It’s my consolation prize for not making Clarion.  It’s also something I should be doing as a writer.  There are contacts and friends to be made.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has offered me encouragement after the big Clarion West rejection.  I assure you all, I will continue writing and I’m trying hard not to let it get me down.  I’m just going to have to work other angles to get in the door.  I may try Clarion again, I may not.  I sure don’t expect it to be as big a deal as it was this year; I hope to get my career going on my own before it comes round again.

It’s Official

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 7 Comments

I got the email today.  The story that placed second in Writers of the Future failed to warrant an invitation to Clarion West.  Or Clarion.  I did better last year with a story that still has not sold.  (I think I just sent the one to CW.)  No workshop for me.

I don’t get it.  I can accept it, but I don’t understand what more I can do (other than learn to count).  Was my story too commercial?  You hear that on America’s Next Top Model.  (I have a wife; don’t judge me!)  Or too safe?  They say that on Idol.  Or maybe my style is too unoriginal.  Or maybe…I could do this all year (and may).  Bottom line, I’m out.  Huge congratulations to those that got in.

It was a nice rejection.  You could tell Neile was aware of my very public obsession and/or my waitlisting last year:

Dear Scott:

Thank you for applying to the Clarion West Writers Workshop for 2010.

I am so sorry to let inform you [sic] that you were not selected for this
year's class. I know this is a disappointment. Your work ranked well
with our readers again, but it just wasn't to be.

Leslie and I both wish you the best with your writing and hope you
have a productive summer, and that you will apply again.

Thank you again for your interest in Clarion West.

With much regret,

Neile

So, will I apply again?  I’m not ruling it out, but I’m leaning toward no.  I’ve mentioned an intention to expand my family.  I wouldn’t want to leave my wife pregnant with a four-year-old.  That’s far from a guaranteed status, so stuff may change.  It would also be nice if, next summer, I was in a place where focusing on novels instead of short stories proved more productive.  So it may not happen.  It may.  Never say never.  It may come down to who’s teaching.

I still have WotF for a week in August.  That will be sweet.  I may target a con or two this summer.  I’ll keep writing, that’s for sure.  And all my fellow rejects should, too.  Or as Howard Waldrop says, if this can make you stop writing, maybe you should.

Wife, daughter, WotF, vacation, novel work.  Yeah, I’ll be okay.  Pissy, but okay.

CW Gossip!

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

Relax, if you’ve been prowling in the same circles I do, there’s nothing new.  The main excitement comes from a C-SD acceptee’s blog, specifically the postscript.  My nosing has proven incomplete as I don’t know whose it is, but congratulations to him (it is a him, isn’t it?).

As I gather it, the phone call in question was made after he (we’ll keep saying he because I think that’s been the consensus) withdrew from CW consideration.  I’d do the same if I was working with CW and someone on the list I’d been working on zipped me a got-a-better-offer email, mostly to make sure they knew what I was offering.  That does not mean the list is complete or that even one call had been previously placed.  It does tell me that the CW list of selectees exists.  It also tells me that ALL the calls had not yet been made.  Maybe none had, maybe seventeen, but not all.

Another CW applicant mentioned a friend (at least blogosphere acquaintance) made a vague comment about news about attending “a certain prestigious writing workshop”.  I was unable to track this comment down and am unsure how significant it is.  If selectees are being asked to keep quiet, that doesn’t seem to fit but clearly doesn’t blare any horns.  (If I suddenly mentioned an acceptance, that might be a different story.  No such mentionings today.)

I feel like the Perez Hilton of the Clarion world.  That is not a good thing.  Maybe I should stop reporting the gossip, otherwise an abrupt silence from this blog might be construed as meaningful.  Hmmm.  Why can’t I build this kind of tension into my stories?

Evil, thy name is telemarketer!

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 6 Comments

Phone rings.  Stare at the caller id.  Unknown,  000-000-0000.  Heart leaps to throat.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“He–”

“I’m calling for something you don’t care about.  Did you know…”

Hang up the phone.  Cuss incessantly.  Wonder about sanity and direction of life.