Tag: clarion

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

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

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  It’s a tad outdated, but there’s good stuff.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!

Clarion Response

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 6 Comments

[Check the date. This post is about Clarion 2010.]

Wow.

I got my email today.  I said I shouldn’t be overconfident.  I was right.  Flat rejection.  No waitlist, not even a particularly warm invitation to apply again, just thanks-but-no-thanks.

I am Scott’s blank astonishment.

There’s still Seattle where I only submitted my WotF story.  Was the other that bad?  Were my cuts to bring the WotF story down to 6000-words that devastating?  I’m lost for words, very unlike me.  I knew I was being overconfident.  Karma’s a bitch.

So I wait resolutely and much less confidently for CW.  I need to remember, tastes run the gamut and what works one place doesn’t work everywhere.  I’ll try to remember the reciprocal point; it’s more useful.  For now, I’ll walk around stunned and pissy until I hear from CW.  Then I’ll be happy or really pissy.

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.

Little Things

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

This is still the same blog it was last week.  My dashboard hasn’t changed, the domain name, title, and theme.  Old links still come to this site.  So why did I lose my existing OpenID information?  Grrr.

On the upside, I cleaned up the workshop page and I think it’s a lot cleaner looking than before, thanks in large part to the easy image saving my new PowerPoint provides.  Heck, the old PowerPoint might have done the same without me knowing.  But it made altering images a lot easier than what I was doing.  Of course my wife can do about anything I need done to a picture with all her photography software, but I like to do things myself.  You can see the difference between me doing things and her doing things by checking out her site. She’s so professional.

What else?  My bio is ready to be sent to WotF.  Maybe I’ll do that when I finish this post.  I also cleaned up the links, removing some blogs I no longer frequent from the blogroll and combining some categories.  I’d like to expand some sections, too, particularly Pros and Friends, but I haven’t gotten to it yet.

I regret that I removed the link to Jordan Lapp’s blog because he hasn’t updated it since November.  He still has a great page dedicated to WotF links.  But with the subtractions come additions, one anyway.  Welcome to the blogroll, Clint.  I’d tell everyone about Clint, but you could just read his blog instead.

As I was setting up my new domain, I realized it was last February when I started this blog.  Just a year, twelve and a half months ago I recorded my first blog post.  (Okay, I had done a couple at MySpace, but no one read them.)  It’s interesting to see how little has changed.  The two stories in the post are still making the rounds and I’m still waiting to hear about Clarion.

Soeaking of Clarion, the deadline for both Clarion-SD and Clarion West is tomorrow!  (March 1st, that is.)  Just a friendly heads up.  If you get started applying electronically before say 10PM tomorrow, you’ll probably still get the app in on time.  (Don’t miss the invitation code for Clarion-SD on the screen after you pay the application fee.  I did.)

So the true waiting begins.  You can tell the time is getting close because the CW forum has gotten busy again.  It’s my goal to get all three of my pending stories finished and mailed out before I get my Clarion news.  I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t, but it’s my little goal.  One to Triangulation, two others yet to be determined.  I also need to get my Q1 story mailed out elsewhere…haven’t done that yet.  So lots to do.  I think I’ll get started.

Snow waits for no man

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

Another couple days out of school (the today that is ending and the tomorrow about to begin, it being after 11PM and all).  How much writing have I clocked this week?  100 words?  Maybe 200?  Honestly the count may be negative since I’ve been removing cancerous cliches from my latest endeavor.

But I have some energy now and most of my best work comes in the wee hours (at least I believe that in those wee hours).  When I get done here, I intend to power through to the next good part and build some steam.  My afternoon/evening is still booked with some training tomorrow (free laptop, baby!) but morning and early afternoon are free enough to squeeze out some words whenever my daughter is reasonably distracted (which happened seldom today, so I have that much excuse).

I’ve been trolling Icerocket for other people’s comments on Clarion/Clarion West.  It’s interesting what I find.  Apparently Clarion is a computer language or something and I get mostly drivel about that, but what real hits I get run the gamut from “I’m pretty sure I’ll get in” to “is it even worth my effort”.  I fear I would likely fall on the arrogant side of this, though my close shave with CW last year is at least some sort of pedigree, as is my WotF finalist I used to apply (more on that below).  Still, I don’t feel confident at all.  I screwed up my application length — even the format — for CW.  I had to cut 500 words from my story to submit to Clarion, 500 words that were mostly character-building or fleshed out the milieu (a word I’m trying to use more often), so maybe I stripped the story of some of its strengths and/or charm…and it was still a nibble above the word count.  (As if that story could be called “charming” at all.)  And the second Clarion story was a bit experimental in form, only an HM from WotF, and really represented my abilities from years ago, when I wrote the first draft without the Multiple Sclerosis angle.

So no, I’m not certain I’ll make it.  If people have more reason to expect to make it than I have (they may have pro sales or better semi-pros, for instance), then more power to them and I hope I see you out west.  If they have less reason to think they’ll make it (I have no formal training, no pro sales or even especially braggable semi-pro sales, I type slow and read slower, and I went five pages over for my CW application, for goodness sake!), then there’s still reason to apply.  For instance, I know Clarion (SD) has a tiered rejection system.  (If it says you were close, you were.)  And you might just get in anyway!  It’s not a magazine, it’s a workshop.  They are looking as much at potential as they are skill.  A clever writer with an obvious flaw might be a better candidate than a pretty-good-all-around writer that doesn’t stand out anywhere.  What will that person do, increase his/her mediocrity?

This isn’t to say everyone should apply.  It’s not worth it to every Joe/Jane that wants to write.  Six weeks away from work often means quitting a job.  Six weeks away from a spouse/fiancee/boyfriend/girlfriend may mean coming home single.  Six weeks away from my daughter is going to be devastating.  If it happens, I’ll have at least one major breakdown.  It will happen.  Not to mention I’ll also be away from my wife.  And the financial cost…  How many Clarion writers actually recoup that money with writing sales?

But face it, Clarion is my American Idol.  If I can make it as a writer, this will help (not make, but help) it happen.  It will open doors whose keys I might never reach by other avenues.  So for me, it’s worth it…perhaps for the last time. Let’s just say that after 2010, I intend to have too much to leave behind for six weeks to be reasonable.  So this is my Clarion shot.  The darts are away.  I should find out where they land in the next four to six weeks.  (If anyone thinks six weeks isn’t long, send off the application and wait those six weeks to hear back.  It’s a freaking eternity!)

And I know Clarion is not the only path to Publishing Parnassus.  Writers of the Future seems to be a good train, and more evidence that four to six weeks can be interminible.  (Come on, judges, declare my victory/defeat and get on with it!)  Lots of people just keep submitting until that one sale happens.  Then it’s off to the snail races.  And if it’s not what but who, networking can be done at conventions, via blogs, through mutual friends (found at cons or blogs), or any other number of ways.  Success is out there, waiting for me.  Waiting for you.  Many roads lead ther; they all have their own toll booths.  Get your exact change ready and get driving.

Ouch…the agony of that last cliche metaphor is killing me.  Avenge me!

Why do I feel like I’m gonna hurl?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I just finished my Clarion application!  (I missed the application invitation when I paid my fee, but someone from the Clarion Foundation was kind enough to point me to the right webpage.)  And now I feel like I’m going to vomit.  Is that related to the application?  Or is it the fact that I was lying on my stomach while I filled it out, after eating microwave Chinese food and a stack of cookies?  Or did I forget my reflux medicine this morning?  Or is it because my daughtehad a stomach flu and now the beast has come for me?

Well the application is done anyway.  If I hurl, I hurl.  I’ll survive either way.

I still need to do the CW app.  Still waiting on my source to advise me thoroughly before I send it.  It will all be out there soon.  Then just more waiting.

I hate waiting.

Why I should do things in advance

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I decided this afternoon that I’d read over my two strongest pieces and send them to Clarion with my application.  I read.  One story pulled an honorable mention from WotF and the other is my finalist story, only the latter has been shaved down by about 500 words to fit the application guidelines better.  I don’t think the story loses too much from the edit and it’s not worth the gamble to send the full version.  (I’m waiting on some inside information as to whether I need to send the shortened or the full to CW.)  Anyway, the stories have been touched up and are ready to go, I got financial info from my wife for the scholarship application, I paid my application fee…

…and now I have to wait for an invitation code before I do anything.

I have the application receipt, but that’s not what they want.  Last year it took only a couple hours to get the code.  We’ll see for this year.  I had to do this on a holiday weekend?

It just goes to show what my procrastination will do.  I’ve been planning to apply for forever, I could have paid that fee at any time.  But no, genius that I am, I wait until I’m ready to fill out the application online.  Boo to me.

On the upside, I’m ready to submit…I think.  It’s that second story that has me scratching my head.  I could send “Faerie Belches”, it was pretty good.  Or “Excuse Me” to show that I have a sense of humor.  Or “Chasers”, which is old but still a fine piece.

Gorrammit, now I’m going to have to read “Chasers” and see how it comperes to that other story.  (By the way, due to contest restrictions, I’ve stopped using the titles of any of my unpublished stories on my blog, just in case I enter one in a contest.  WotF is the most notable option, but there are others.)  I’ll let everyone know what I sent after I send it, since that seems the only way I’ll know for sure.

Trouble with numbers

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

Maybe I’ve been aiming at Writers of the Future too much, but I’m having trouble finding stories to submit to Clarion and Clarion West.  My stuff is just too long.  The story I just finished is 8000 words, 33% too long for a C-SD story and quite a few pages longer than CW wants.  “***************” (still hate the title) came in at 6600 and 34 pages, still too much for either.  The naked man story will be at least novelette length, so finishing that up isn’t going to help.

Stay with me while I think out loud…or skip to the next paragraph.  I sent “Leech Run” last year, so that’s out.  I have “Secondhand Rush” that’s shorter (3000 words or so?) but I wrote most of that maybe five years ago.  It did pull an honorable mention from WotF, but so did “Leech Run” and I didn’t quite make it.  “Brother Goo” is kiddy stuff and very derivative, by intent but still out.  I don’t think “How Quickly We Forget” is quite strong enough to send and it’s too short for C-SD.  “Excuse Me” is too…well, it sold to The Rejected Quarterly, so…  If I need to go short-ish, “Faerie Belches” is probably my next strongest piece, again a little too short for C-SD; it’s kiddy stuff, too, but more original.  I’m not happy enough with “__________” to send that.  Maybe I could check the word count on “Chasers”…but that was published in an anthology called Triangulation 2004.

Bottom line, I need to get a new story from zero to publishable in about two months.  Don’t get me wrong, if “****” comes up big in WotF, I’m sending it.  I have an edit that pulls it down to 6200 words (I think) and 32.5 pages.  (It’s hard to remember; I’m a math teacher and not real good with numbers.)  It looks like I need a new idea, something deep enough to inspire a story with umph.  I thought of using my fear of snow-driving as a catalyst (hence the rambling blog post a couple days ago), but it hasn’t taken me anywhere yet.  I have a few little vampire ideas in my head, but really?  Okay, one is pretty good.  No actual vampires needed, but I haven’t found the speculative angle to it yet.  Nothing says it needs one specifically, but I’d like to sell it somewhere.  It’s not a story I need to write, so it’s probably not the one I’m looking for.  Nor is the zombie idea.

I don’t seem to have any good science fiction ideas floating around my brain.  Too bad, because I think I do sci-fi better than fantasy or horror.  I’ve definitely sold more.  Even that wacky talking hat of a Christmas present hasn’t given me any good ideas.

I’m playing writer for the next few days.  All day, typitty-typitty-tap-tap.  (Note to self: still need to send in lesson plans to school.)  It’ll be out of town so maybe the change in scenery will help.  Not a workshop or anything, just escorting my wife to a photography conference.  I need to get something at least planned and started while I’m there.  I’ll bring along some science stuff to get the old brain rolling: Popular Science (because no one writes stories from those ideas, right?), a Michio Kaku book or two, explorations into the fourth dimension, light reading like that.  Not that any of it matters.  Ideas hit when and where they please.  I got an idea for a whole novel based off the title of a book I bought out of a bargain bin(And no, my idea was in no way related to the book in question.)

Maybe I’ll try some workshop techniques.  I could interview a stranger.  Maybe I’ll end up with a photography story idea and be in the perfect place for inspiration.  We’ll see.  Until then I’ll be trying to finish up some lingering projects.  And praying we can get the car up the hill and out of the subdivision.

Dreams and nightmares

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Last night, I dreamt about Clarion.  To my knowledge, I’ve never actually dreamt about the workshop before, only daydreams.  But last night was an honest dreamy-type dream.

It was an anxiety dream, I think.  I was walking around campus in my underwear, holding my daughter’s hand.  I think that’s a symbol of feeling anxious about leaving her for that amount of time.  I also dreamt about driving a car over a very unstable bridge, an image I suspect designed to remind me that it may still be difficult for me to get there.  

There was other stuff: meeting WotF winners there (which seems unlikely since Jordan suggested he was the first winner to go to CW after his win), trying to write a story with pencil and paper, a play being performed about writers at Clarion (in which the character modeled after me was inexplicably shirtless), and other stuff I can’t remember.  

Why is this dream hitting me now?  I wasn’t even writing anywhere near bedtime last night.  Maybe it was my guilty conscience telling me  should have been writing if I want to attend this summer.  Or maybe I just needed a new setting for the age-old in-public-in-my-underwear dream.  Whatever the reason, it has the workshop foremost in my mind again.  It can make focusing on mundane tasks — like school — very difficult.