Month: March 2010

Impersonal Clarion News

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

My regular Icerocket search for the word “Clarion” actually came up with some news today (instead of just quotes from the Clarion-Ledger or references to clarion calls or the Clarion computer language).

The news came from Jeff VanderMeer’s blog, a reliable source since he and his wife are part of the selection committee.  He says final decisions will be made this week, including the 18 invites and waiting list spots.  If one looks carefully, he doesn’t say the invitations will be sent this week, just decided, but I bet they mean the same.  So maybe I’ll have an idea of my C-SD status by the weekend.  Sweet!

I did get a little nervous when I saw how impressive the candidate pool was this year.  I guess they say that every year, but suggesting 30 people could have made it really places that bar high.  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t rattle my confidence a little.  But someone gets in — 18 someones.  So maybe (assuming I’m one of the 30, which I must do for my ego’s sake) that makes my chances 18 out of 30 (or 3 out of 5).  That’s better than the 3 out of 8 I had with WotF.

So news comes soon.  Does that make me more or less patient?

Story by Erosion

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I have been working to clean up my Space Operatic comedy piece for weeks, just barely able to get anything done in any single sitting.  I feel like a sculptor trying to work marble with nothing but a garden hose.  But today I really attacked the piece and have it about where I want it.  It’s a thousand words shorter than it was on OWW.  Shorter is alms always better.  I cut Kira out completely and I shaved the futuristic slang because there just wasn’t enough room to make it work.  Some of these may go back in if I ever build t back up to novel scale.

I’m not sure his is a story I would have been comfortable sending as part of my Clarion application.  It’s too much of a gamble.  But if I can find the right market, this gamble could pay off.  Humor is hard.  Sci-fi humor is really hard.  I see a lot more fantasy humor than sci-fi.  I may be able to carve myself out a niche on the same shelf with Douglas Adams.  The only way to get there is to practice writing humor.  Even if this story fails, I’ll have the experience under my belt for the next funny story.

Speaking of things that move at the speed of erosion, no news yet from any Clarions.  My phone rang today and I had a bit of a breathless moment before my caller ID registered that it was my mom.  (Sorry, Mom.)  No evidence anyone else has been called or emailed or faxed or anything.  I’m still confident I’ll get into at least one, but confidence doesn’t bank well.  I’ll feel a lot better when I get an official invitation.  I will be very bummed if I don’t en up going to a workshop, but that won’t stop me.  I have some good momentum coming off this WotF sale.  I can ride that favorable current a long way, but Clarion wind at my back would combine to make some strong sailing conditions.

It’s still very early in March, too early for my doomsaying.  I think I just feel the need to talk about it because wallowing in silence is too miserable.  There’s too much silence about it online this year.  My urge to bond with other writers is making me feel very alone right now.

ADDED: I just saw that Clarkesworld has rejected the story I sent them.  On to the next market.

Nice Surprise

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I had a nice surprise waiting for me in the mailbox when I got home: WotF prize money!  Nevermind it’s already spent five times over.  It just makes things feel a little more real.

ADDED: I finally got around to subbing what was my WotF Q1 piece to another market (disqualified from the contest as I am).  I sent it to Clarkesworld.  We’ll see.

I could actually see this one breaking into Analog or something.  Wouldn’t that be sweet?  I don’t send much to Analog because I’m familiar with their tastes enough to know I typically fall outside them.  But I have a system; Clarkesworld and Lightspeed first (what could that take, a week?), then Strange Horizons, then on to others.  I will be banging on all the big doors with this one, not that it’s “so good” — I didn’t really expect much from WotF on this one — but because I now have enough pedigree that someone may give the story a shot.  Plus it’s a little experimental and could pull a wild card spot.  You never know.

Slowly but Surely

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine is an Australian semi-pro market with a very good reputation.  I’ve been trying to break into that one for a while.  Usually their turnaround on stories is very fast, their Duotrope reported median response time is 9 days.  They’ve had one of my stories for something like 33.

Their slush process is fairly transparent with a listing of ms numbers in each of their rounds.  My story finally came out of the first round, the first-read level.  It’s probably a fluke of luck that left my story in round one limbo so long.  I am, happily, on now to round two.  I’ve never made it past round two.  Maybe this time.

Round two is the editor scoring round.  Round three is full of stories they would like to publish, a pool of “good enough” stories from which they fill their magazines.  Still, not all those stories are purchased.  Finding my way into that pool would be a good next step for me.  I wait to find out.  Hopefully that won’t take another month.  Even if it does, a two-month period isn’t so long in this business.  I’ve been waiting on Weird Tales longer than that.

Hello, fellow Clarion aspirant

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I seem to be very nostalgic about the chats that went on last year with Jordan, Randy, Jamie and so many others.  Some of those chatters went to the workshop, others did not.  There was a whole thread about sharing the biographical essays we sent to CW.  My essay from last year is here.  My current essay is below.

This was a neat insight into some of last year’s applicants, so I thought maybe we’d do it again.  (See new thread at CW 2010 forum.)  Participation is strictly voluntary, but it helped get to know people and appreciate how different our styles were, just from an essay.  Besides, I can’t post my application story since it’s sold awaiting publication.  Even if it hadn’t sold, I couldn’t share it and still hope to sell it.  But no one’s likely to buy my bio, so here it is.

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Scott W. Baker’s Clarion West Essay

One day I decided to write a novel.  I had just read the first three Harry Potter books (as a grown man) and decided if J.K. Rowling could do it, so could Scott Baker.  (That’s me.)  As it turns out, I was wrong.  While I haven’t totally abandoned that novel project, I’ve learned enough to realize how weak that first attempt really was.

It was eleven years ago that I started that novel.  A third of my life.  Since then, I graduated college, got married, accumulated two cats and two dogs, became a math teacher, and had a daughter (well, my wife did most of the having) that I just watched turn three.  Life is pretty good.

The stories keep coming as I live my good life.  Sometimes they come fast and easy, leaping from fingers to keyboard at the speed of hunt-and-peck.  Other times are slow, painful, empty.  Those times pass and the writing resumes.  I feel incomplete when the words won’t flow.  My life has three big pieces: family, teaching, and writing.  Take away one and I’m incomplete.

That will be the hard part of going to Clarion West, separation from my family.  My daughter is my world, my wife is my stars.  Luckily they love me, too.  Besides, how do I tell little Abigail that she can grow up to be anything she wants to be if I won’t pursue my own dream?  For eleven years I’ve had the same dream and I’ve never been closer to it.  Sure, I’ve been selling stories through those years, mostly to tiny markets for tiny money and the big thrill of seeing my name in print.  But who dreams of tiny?

Last year I was on the Clarion West waiting list.  A short list, to be sure, but no one dropped out and I missed out.  It was still the biggest validation my writing career had received.  A few days ago I received a second big validation when one of my stories became a finalist in L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest (incidentally, my application story).  I will send this application before I know whether I place.  Place or not, this suggests I’m capable of writing a story at a professional level.  That’s just one story; I want all my work to be like that.  The time to make that transition has arrived.

I can do it alone, but it will take a long time.  Form rejections aren’t going to cut it.  I need high-value feedback now more than ever.  The more I can get, the more time I can focus on my writing, the faster I’m going to evolve.  I don’t want to wait another eleven years to achieve my dream.

The teacher in me wants to share all I have learned in my decade of writing.  No formal training outside of high school, but I’ve read umpteen writing books, participated in three different online workshops, and earned enough rejections to papier-mâché a large piñata full of chowder.  I want to lend my voice to others’ craft almost as much as I still need their voices to help shape mine.

What I may need most from the workshop is to escape the loneliness of being a writer.  I may well be the only speculative fiction writer for a fifty-mile radius.  I’ve never been to a convention (plans always fall through) and never been to a workshop.  I have writing friends online, but text and images aren’t quite people.  No man is an island; if I keep trying to be, I’ll drown.

I already know how I will celebrate my acceptance, should it happen.  I intend to go to Wal-Mart and purchase several Nerf dart guns.  I envision a dorm-wide dart war with assassinations and full-scale assaults…it will be glorious.  Hey, you can’t write all the time.  Of course I’ll have to buy replacement darts before June because my daughter and I will lose them all before then.  Losing things is one of my specialties.  Even as a child, my mother called me “The Absent Minded Professor”.  I’m still pursuing my personal flubber.

I’m a nice guy (unless I’m assassinating you with a piece of foam capped with a suction cup).  More importantly, I’m fun.  Not life-of-the-party fun, more math-teacher-imitating-an-applauding-tyrannosaurus fun, Hawaiian-shirt-to-work fun, laugh-at-my-own-flaws fun.  I get along with people and they tolerate the heck out of me.  Plus I’m housebroken.  Mostly.

So, howdy.  I’m pleased to make your acquaintance and I hope to see you this summer.  I hope Clarion West can be part of my writing journey.  I hope I can be a part of the legacy that is Clarion West.