Tag: Codex

First con of the year

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

It’s probably not the first con in the nation or anything, but ChattaCon will be my first con of the year.  It was a fun little con last year where I made some friends.  They are having me back as an “Also Attending” guest.  Not sure what panels I’ll have, but we shall see.

Tis also the season for Codex‘s Weekend Warrior contest.  It’s really just an excuse to use my competitive spirit to reload my inventory with flash fiction stories, those being my best sellers.  Prompts appear on Friday evening and I have until Sunday evening to submit my story.  This was the first weekend and the story I produced is…I’m predicting top third of the pack, though it’ll be hard to tell since the pack is allegedly numbering in the forties this time around.  But it’s not really about the voting results; it’s about the feedback and having stories to send out.  I have my reading cut out for me this week if I have 40+ stories to read and rate and comment on.  Thank goodness none will be over 750 words!

My new school schedule is giving me a reality kick in the cajones.  Three different classes that are just similar enough to confuse me.  More prep time this semester than last, that’s for sure.  That means less writing time.  Oh please, weather, be good in 11 days so I can get to ChattaCon.  After that, snow school out all you want.

Hooray! Fall Break!

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Whew, has it been nine weeks of school already?  On the one hand, it seems like I’ve been back to school forever.  On the other hand, it’s like I’m still getting back up to speed from summer.  Either way, nine weeks (closer to eight, technically, but it’s the first quarter) are in the books and I’ve got a week of no school!

I’ve already started my celebration of freedom by reading, commenting on, and voting for the stories in the Codex Halloween Short Story Contest.  There were 23 entries which gave me 22 to read (plus my own entry).  Time consuming.  I expected it to take me into next week, but I am finished.  I voted earlier this weekend and delayed this post a bit to avoid tipping my hand as to my identity since the contest is conducted blind.  Not that anyone is lining up to guess my identity.  I’m still fairly anonymous there.  My name is known and people engage me in discussions, but my style isn’t easily recognized.  Maybe my style just isn’t that defined?  Ah, who cares.

There are some very talented writers at Codex — award-winning types as well as those getting published regularly and those (not unlike me) who are still refining their talent into something that can be dubbed “success”.  It was tough to narrow the voting to the top 3.  That makes it extra nice to see that my story did indeed get some top-three votes.  It’s not about winning (since I don’t see that happening) but about creating a product that is viewed with pleasure.  I reached some readers and that’s something.  Now to distill the comments down into something usable so I can reach some editors.

Beyond the Codex bit, I hope to get some new writing done during my week of freedom.  To do so, I’ll have to squeeze it into a family trip to the mountains.  Don’t get me wrong, I love family trips to the mountains.  Fresh air, a nice cabin, food, Dollywood, a little hiking, food, possible bear sightings, beautiful scenery, and food.  What’s not to love?  But I want to get a barrel full of new words written and I may well be looking at a bucket-full of time.  I really want to get my fairytale rewrite written (rewritten?) and I’d also like to get some momentum on my novel project…heck, any novel project.

So my week off is a week on for writing.  Plus I have a small mountain (more a large hill) of papers to grade and a lesson plan to rewrite for personal edification.  And all the family bonding stuff.  And I think I wanted to squeeze some eating in there.

Nothing like a little down time.  :^)

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!

Production is up

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

Over the past six weeks I have written eight stories.  8.  Can you believe it?  Seven of those are flash, mind you, but that’s eight finished products.  Yeah, yeah, some still need polish, but eight.  I’ve gone full years without finishing eight.

The primary contributing factor was my writing group, Codex.  They had what they called the Weekend Warrior contest.  It’s a flash fiction contest with no tangible prize.  each Saturday morning, a series of prompts were posted on the group’s site.  The following Sunday (Monday morning, technically), stories were due in.  750-word limit.  Judging was done by group members, mostly contestants.  It was fun.  I was in the top bunch the first week, at one point taking the #2 spot, but drifted back.  I ended the contest in 7th out of 30 entrants (fewer writing the 3 story minimum to compete).  Nothing to sneeze at.  These are all professional caliber writers and I hung with them.  This was simply evidence that I too am a pro caliber writer, something I already had reasonable evidence to support, but a little reminder is nice from time to time.

Anyway, the contest technically only accounts for five stories.  The sixth was actually the first, a failed attempt at the first week’s prompt that grew into a 900-word story and now lingers on the scales of justice at DSF (second round, long wait, good stuff).  The seventh was also a failed attempt at a contest story, though it did come in under 750.  It was Thursday before the SuperBowl and I had it in my head that one prompt would relate to a sporting event, so I jumped the gun and drafted a sports story.  It turned out to be 750 words of dialog, no speaker attributions or anything.  Experimental and maybe a tad derivative but fun.  Alas, the sports prompt never surfaced, which I guess is good because it forced me to write another story, as well as alleviating the temptation to cheat (that story would not have been written over the weekend).

Number eight was a result of someone’s idea to follow up the Weekend Warrior with a full-fledged short story in a weekend.  This wasn’t part of the contest, just a friendly challenge.  I did that, too, pumping out a 3000-word zombie tale that has so far received warm reviews.  It’s really a reduction of a novel (maybe novella) milieu that I’ve never found devised a plot for.  I didn’t expect it to be so short, but the story did a reasonable job falling into place.  I’m glad it’s short; short sells.  More market options, less financial risk for the editor. I credit five weeks of flashing (that sounds more inappropriate than it is) for the concise story.

Anyway, I’m happy to have lots to send out.  I’m still waiting to hear on a few good candidates.  Like I mentioned, DSF has one (initials FS) in deep consideration; if they buy it, it will be my first one-time-submission sale since my very first sale, “Decisions, Decisions!”  Strange Horizons has been holding EE for quite a while; nowhere near their predicted response time, but they were only open to subs for four days before I sent it, and that was to limited volume.  Escape Pod has had TRM for a long time, but they seem a bit backlogged at the moment.  (Their payment for Leech Run arrived, though.  Yay!)  I should hear something from Sniplits about GB…eventually; they have long response times, but I’m reaching the end, finally.  I need to get these other seven buffed and out the door, too.  I think I may send some of the lower-scoring ones straight to lower-paying flash markets.  Or maybe I’ll hold them while Fred works them over.  At least two of them are ready for top-tier scrutiny.  Maybe I can get my race score up above ten for once.