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Sunday, August 17, 2003

Okay, so I don't post so often. Sorry.

Finished revisions today on "What Comes After Paradise" and "Pushing Your Buttons." WCAP is printed out and ready to hit a professional market. Michele and I bought new white folders and setup to print addresses on clear labels and everything. Cool Beans! Now, if only you could tell the quality of a story by its envelope, I've got it made in the shade.

For PYB (known to me Clarion mates by another name in its previous incarnation "FMBOTSOML"), I'm going to let a few pair of fresh eyes take a gander before I submit. It was the story I wrote at Clarion that had the most of my "voice" according to many an instructor. And yet, it needed to be totally reorganized around a theme. I think I've done that, but I'm out there in territory where seemingly innocuous word choice can make or break the whole impression. Where polish matters so much it won't hurt to gather some more impressions.

Now it's been a month since Clarion ended. Alas, I don't have spectacular gobs of wisdom about the experience that I lacked previously. Maybe that's because I haven't fully integrated all my thoughts. Maybe it's because I haven't had a strong SF idea since leaving. (I've written some, mainly a farcical fantasy and part of a more quest-oriented tale. Neither will be the main thrust of my writing, but it still feels good to be trying different things. (this was not new to Clarion. However, escape from the rational is there in greater measure every time I sit down to write. A good thing?)

For some reason, sciencedaily.com and the other sources I've relied upon to spark story ideas aren't lubricating the old creative pathways right now. Despite James Patrick Kelly's advice to write a new story then revise, rinse, repeat, I may have too many stories floating around in my head. I'd like to get at least one more story revised and ready to go by Worldcon, leaving only one must-do for my return.

Perhaps I've been possessed by aliens. I always suspected the possibility.




Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Like wow. My story Ballad of a Billy Goat that I wrote (the first drafts of) in 1994 just sold to Chaos Theory, another funzine (another nicely put together funzine to be sure). Well, it doesn't count towards the 500 rejection quota but I'll take it. (Good thing it sold too, this was Michele's favorite of my stories prior to Monkey See and Remersion. She was getting a little peeved at my inability to find it a home :>)

The pay? Approximately 1/7 cent per word. Not bad, not bad. Just two orders of magnitude to go!

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Another rejection! Everything old is new again. (Triangle won.)
Don't think of it as a rejection; it's an invitation to try selling the story somewhere else ("anywhere else," poor beleaguered JJ begs...)
That's cool. There's lots of else. No wonder I've got such a large spreadsheet to keep track of it all. James Patrick Kelly told us he collected 500 rejections between his first and second pro sale. I'm way behind, on both that first sale and the 500 invitations to try elsewhere.
I have finally started writing again. The temptation to slump post-clarion is real, but hopefully overcome, at least for the moment. Goal for August 2003-August 2004: 200,000 fresh words. Good ones? JJ can only hope.

Sunday, August 03, 2003

So, I wrote 600+ words on August first. Huzzah! Does this mean the post-clarion slump is over? Hard to say. Hard to say.

Despite my dream of the breakout short story and of taking my writing to the next level, it's all about the daily practice of writing. I know that, really I do.

I have hundreds of thousands of words to go yet. (as do each and every one of you - get writing.)

I've sent my "homage to Ursula" story to my home critique group. And I'll work on revising Remersion in the near future. All is well in the long run - and in the long run we're all dead.

The horns of a dilemma. Tune in next week. Same bat channel




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