How much work could a workshop shop if a workshop could shop work?

I’ve been putting this post off and now it’s almost too late.  The deadlines for applying for Clarion and Clarion West are both this coming Tuesday.  If you’re even slightly interested in attending either, go apply.  Yes, they both have application fees, but those are to keep out the riff-raff that aren’t serious.  It’s a lot more expensive to attend.  But it’s Clarion.  Stop dragging your feet and get those applications sent.

For those who don’t know, I was wait-listed for Clarion West two years ago and received a flat rejection last year.  Clarion-Clarion (aka Clarion East or Clarion San Diego…not very east) has done naught but reject me.  Mind you, I’ve only applied twice.  And that number will stay at twice.

That’s right, I’m not applying this year.  I’ve mentioned it around and I may have declared it here before, but it’s no longer economical to consider Clarion.  At least not now.  The price tag is only part of the issue.  It’s the six weeks away from wife and daughter I can’t handle.  I was prepared to sacrifice last year, as I was the year before, but my career is at a different level now.  Not that I’m soaring; I’m not.  I could still get a lot out of Clarion or CW or Odyssey (later deadline, more structure).  It’s just not worth the trade-off anymore.  I’ve placed in the Writers of the Future contest.  I’ve attended the WotF workshop.  I’ve met a gaggle of professional writers and made connections.  I have a network of writers I connect with (two between Codex and the WotF vol. 26 group).  Editors express personalized regret when they (still) reject my stories.  So I’m out.

As for those of you who have applied to Clarion West, I’m happy to see the forum there starting to pick up steam.  (I poke my head in periodically.  I’m nosy like that.)  I’ve made friends through that forum who I still keep in touch with.  Some of them are on my blogroll.  It’s a great place to network (not advance-my-career networking but more part-of-a-writing-community networking) and get intel on the acceptance/rejection process.  Plus it’s not a bad place to acquire blog traffic; I still get people linking-in to my old posts through that forum, mostly my application essays (2009 and 2010).  So go poke your nose in and say hi.

Oh, and check out my workshop page.  It’s a tad outdated, but there’s good stuff.

Good luck to all those applying!