How am I going to resist this?

I recently blogged on my discovery of and addiction to the Writing Excuses podcast.  Well, this morning I discovered that the fine folks at Writing Excuses (specifically Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Taylor, and Dan Wells) are conducting a one-week writing workshop/retreat called “Out of Excuses“.

Knowing what I know about these fine folks, I suspected the workshop would be in Utah.  It is not.  It’s in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Yeah, that’s like an hour and a half from where my butt currently sits.

So I need to do one of two things: (a) figure out where to get a thousand bucks (give or take) so I can attend, or (b) find a sufficient excuse to explain to myself why it’s okay that I’m not attending. A roommate would make (a) a more feasible option by reducing the lower bound of the price to $750 (extras will still cost extra, of course).

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t Clarion or the WotF workshop, but it’s a week to be a writer and to get to know writers.  And write.

Hard to say what my situation will be by June, financially and otherwise, so option (b) will likely fulfill itself via the workshop filling up before I can afford to buy in.  But it’s an option on the horizon that would be pretty frigging awesome.  I’ll be contemplating and brainstorming…

The Good, the Bad, and the Update

Stuff going on all over the place here in Chaos land.  Some are good, some are bad, some are just continuations of stuff I’ve mentioned before.  I will refrain from classifying in order to protect the innocent and the guilty.

First, summer ends and school starts tomorrow.  Well, inservice anyway.  I got about 10% of the writing I wanted done over the summer, so I’ll go ahead and classify that part as bad.  I can say I’m eager to see this particular summer end, so I guess that hits good.  So maybe it’s a wash.  Either way, I’m up early and back at it tomorrow.

In other news, I’m starting to get adjusted to my bi-pap machine.  I’ve mentioned it before; it keeps pressure on my airway to combat apnea and snoring.  The foundation of the house appreciates the snore reduction.  It’s still an odd sensation and I occasionally feel like the thing is suffocating me, but less and less.  I’ve started spending time reading before bed with the mask on to get used to it before trying to sleep in it.  I will be bringing the machine with me to cons in the future which should make roommates a more realistic possibility.

Speaking of reading, I’ve started reading Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy which I picked up at LibertyCon.  It’s interesting.  So far, it’s pretty much a caper story set in a fantasy world.  A lot of the powers in the story remind me of the movie Push (Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning), which was a better film than its box office suggests.  The two don’t seem to be related, though.  Anyway, I’m really enjoying the first book.  I’m tempted to bring it to the inservice tomorrow, but no.  I’m too straight-laced to do that, alas.

What else?  The same middle scene of my steampunk fairytale continues to defy me.  I think I need to completely reimagine the scene.  That may well mean rereading the story up to that point.  I bet there’s a flaw before that scene that can be tweaked to lend to the proper flow.  I wanted to have a funcional draft before I went back to school.  I don’t.  Oh well.

And finally, I am toying with the idea of creating a podcast.  I’m not 100% what format I’m after.  I think I’ll do a reading as a dry run with the tech available to me to see how practical this idea is.  If it sounds like garbage, I’ll have to abandon the idea until I can afford decent equipment.  This is likely a reaction to listening to a lot of Writing Excuses of late.  I’m probably leaning toward an informal interview style, mostly via skype.  Anyway, it’s still an idea at stage two out of fifty, but I think it would be fun.

So, That’s the updates on me.  And I made it all the way through without telling you to go to Smashwords or the Kindle Store to buy Baker’s Dozen.  Okay, almost all the way through.  If you have a Smashwords coupon, it expires on the 22nd, so go get it.  And I am looking for reviewers still.  If you’ve ever reviewed stuff before and/or have significant web traffic, send me an email so we can work out a free ebook arrangement.

Until next time, stay chaotic.  (Trying out a new catchphrase.  Maybe?)