Still nothing from Clarion SD (my new name for Clarion “east”; others are using it , too).  I have no evidence it was them that called my cell this morning.  I have no evidence it wasn’t.

The lack of news makes my position seem that much less certain compared with CW.  I want to know something.  If they’re going to miss their own deadline they should email applicants and tell us.  It’s like getting to the top of a rollercoaster’s first hill and not going over.  They have hours until their deadline (March 20th) passes.  I won’t be able to sleep until I know something.

I intend to post again tonight, even if it’s a scream of frustration (there is one of those below).  I won’t leave my visitors hanging.  Even if they tell me not to tell anyone, I’ll let you know that I know.  That’s something, right?

-Oso

Doh!  I just hung up on an “unavailable” call on my cell.  It rang during class, so I automatically clicked it off.  Could it be San Diego?  Or even Seattle with an early vacancy?  Could it be a telemarketer selling scuba gear?  I don’t know.  I feel like a dummy.  

-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

We’ve all heard it: Harry Potter saved reading (from Voldemort, apparently).  I got to wondering how I grew up a reader, let alone turned into a writer.  I got to thinking about what books were popular when I was young.

Hardy Boys were still around and grownups pushed them on me (a little younger than the Potter readers, but not by much), but I don’t recall ever finishing one.  I read a lot of Encyclopedia Brown.  My wife read Judy Blume, but she’s not really a reader anymore.

Then it occurred to me: Choose Your Own Adventure!

How many of those books did I own?  How many did I check out of the elementary school library?  There were hundreds of them out there.  One of my favorites (something about dragons) had a page number typo and I never reached a good ending.

They turned out about the length of a short story by the time you finished, never reading a good percentage of the pages.  They were quick, easy reading, and literally got the reader involved in the story.  I suspect they were the Harry Potter of their time, though they clearly never carried into the adult demographic.  They made readers out of many in my generation.  

It made me wonder who wrote those stories and whether I could do it.  I probably could with a model or two to pull from.  I wonder if they’re still making new ones.  Hmm.

-Oso