Leave It All Behind: Advice For Certain Clarion Students

I’d been writing for twenty years when I started writing.
I entered Clarion with two decades’ worth of failure resting on my shoulder; no novels, no professional sales, no fans of my fictional worlds at all.  And twenty years’ of failure is an arthritic, backbreaking load to carry, a thick sheaf of rejection slips so heavy it threatens to crush you. Every critique got filtered through that history, turned into evidence that I should give this “writing” thing up.
Which makes sense.  Twenty years of solid effort at a thing seems enough.  After two decades sans success, it’s time to start on an exit strategy.
Except that Clarion had just blown apart my concept of what it meant to be a writer.  It had highlighted all my bad habits, taught me that I needed to get serious about not just writing but rewriting, showcased that things I thought were strengths were actually weaknesses.  Everything I knew was wrong.
So I had to make everything else I knew wrong.
Five years ago, on my first day back from Clarion, I started writing.  I literally flung aside the past twenty years’ of effort as a bad first draft to rewrite my whole career from scratch.  That may have been one of the wisest decisions I ever made, right up there with “Should I marry Gini?” and “Should I take six weeks’ off from work to attend Clarion?”  Shedding that load of expectation allowed me to work with freedom, to play with things, to take huge risks without worrying about what it all meant.
Which paid off, to some extent.  Do I have a novel published?  No.  But I’ve had a lot of short stories published, and many people are fans of my fiction, and if there is a path to being a Writing Success – which I’m increasingly unconvinced of – I’m farther along that path than I ever was.  (The quote that I’m clasping to heart today is, “I guess that’s why I aim for excellence — not being the best. Excellence is an abundant quality. Being the best depends on hierarchy.”)
So my advice if you’re one of those Clarion students who’s been battering at publication like a moth at the lamp – take today to shrive yourself.  Let it all go.  You know how transformed you are; let that be complete, and shed that caterpillar to become a butterfly.
You’ve done nothing before today.  It’s all new.
Welcome to the world.

The Dumbest Thing I've Said In The Past Decade Was Today

The clerk, as to me I’m checking out of the motel: “Is your wife participating in Pedal to the Point this weekend?”
Me: “Yup. Riding two straight days for charity!”
Clerk: “She’s helping my family out. My sister was just diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.”
Me: “Oh, that’s awesome!”
*pause*
Me: “…I sure hope you know what I meant to say.”
Clerk: “You betcha.”

"Who Would Win In A Fight?": Dammit, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

The most domesticated of pet peeves:
On Twitter, a friend asked, “Who would win in a fight? Fringe, or Torchwood?”  And I immediately gave the wrong answer.
I snap-judged “Fringe” as the winner, but on reflection that’s because I’ve seen four and a half seasons of Fringe, and only a handful of Torchwood episodes.  I was picking a winner on who I liked best.  And I fucking hate it when that happens, because I really don’t know that much about Torchwood and maybe hell, they would kick the shit out of Fringe.
The proper answer is to recuse yourself. To say, “Mu.”  To honestly acknowledge that you’re not educated enough to say.  Because I fucking hate it when people have an online poll of “Who would win in a lambada contest, Doctor Who or [less well-known character]?” and of course Doctor Who wins in a goddamned landslide because nobody knows who this other schmuck is.
But we weren’t asking, “Who do you like better?”  We’re asking “Who is more qualified?”  And if you’re not intimately familiar with the mad dance moves of [less well-known character], then you shouldn’t even click on the goddamned poll.  You’re the reasons this world is a fucking cesspool.  Every time some asshole gets promoted at work because the bosses know him better, or some underqualified person gets hired because the interviewer knew their mother, or some criminal goes scot-free because the cops know him and aw, shucks, he’s not that bad, it’s all because you said Doctor Who could lambada.
Stop choosing based on like.  Make it about qualifications, dammit, or some day we’ll have to have a big fucking dance-off to save the planet and you’ll find out that despite the fact that he had an episode devoted to it, the Doctor really can’t dance.

Have Some Hawaiian Vacation Photos To Obscure All This Begging.

What with my Hawaiian cruise absence and all, the blog’s been a little “Please give these things money” more than I’d like.  I usually try to leaven the donation calls with my usual entertainment, but Hawaii?  Is far away.
Seriously.  Nobody told me the islands were a six-hour time difference from my usual East Coast home zone, and so I’m jetlagged and punchy.  I’ve got at least two entries pending, one a rant on the sending of dick pics, but I know I’m sufficiently loopy that while I could write something, it wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining as when I’m back up to full speed.  So rather than, er, blowing a good topic when I’m sleepy, I’m holding until I can unleash the full Ferrett upon y’all.

So as a consolation prize, have some Hawaiian pictures.

My wife, on our nature hike, sniffing a flower. I’d like to say these beautiful eyes are why I fell in love with her, but really it was her words. Still, these eyes don’t hurt.

While I was in Hawaii, I found the most awesome hat store with a really knowledgeable owner (he reblocked my Ecuadorian hat!), and so of course I bought a hat. The truth is, I actually look wretched in most hats; I’m just dedicated enough to try on thirty or forty of ’em until I find one like this.

Leis are surprisingly weighty; there’s a satisfying heft in real florals that you don’t get in the fake plastic leis they sell everywhere. It comes as no surprise to anyone, however, that I wore a lei every day I could. I’m told you’re not supposed to buy them for yourself, as they’re intended to be gifts; this is a shame. I’d look like one selfish fuck in Hawaii if I lived there, as I’d have to wear ’em all the time, along with my hats and pretty pretty princess nails.

We did not stop at this floating bar, but dammit I wanted to.

Yes, I bought an Elvis shirt. Two of them, actually.

This was the view from our cruise ship balcony. Not shown: the dolphins playing along the ship at the bottom. Seriously.

Hawaii actually looks like this. It’s so beautiful I kept thinking, “This must be some crazy illusion,” and then I’d make my Disbelieve roll and it would shimmer and fade to reveal, oh, I don’t know, Pittsburgh.

And, of course, you can’t overlook the true treasures of Hawaii.

The Last Week Of The Clarion Blog-A-Thon. Can You Help?

It’s the last week of the Clarion Blog-A-Thon, the annual writing exercise I do for my alma mater.  I have raised $850.  I’d like to get to $1,000 before it finishes this Sunday.
If you donate a mere $5, there’s good value in it, I think; in the Clarion Echo, where I’ve been live-writing things, I’ve posted the final drafts of not one but four stories that I’ve already sent out for publication:

• “The Sturdy Bookshelves of Pawel Olizsewski,” the tale of perhaps the oddest wizard you’ll ever meet, and the envious obituary writer who attempts to dissect his magic;
• “The Cultist’s Son,” the darkest story I’ve ever written (or think I will ever write), detailing the damage a Shub-Niggurath cultist did to her son;
• “REMployee of the Month,” a flash fiction about retail workers who put their shifts in while they sleep;
• “Run Deeper,” a Lovecraftian spin on, of all things, Minecraft.

I think paying $5 for four short stories isn’t a bad deal.  But if you’re a writer, there’s also close to 10,000 words of commentary on how I edited those stories from first to final draft, laying out in detail what I thought was wrong with each of the stories and describing how I fixed it… or how I abandoned it.  I try my best to put you inside my messy little writer’s head, showing you all the tiny tricks that takes a story from “readable” to “good.”  (I won’t say “great,” as I never love my fiction, but at least two of these stories are literally as good as I’m capable of writing right now – The Cultist’s Son is some of the best characterization I’ve done in the past five years.)
So there’s a lot in there.  Plus, if you donate $25, I will critique a story for you – I’ve got four people with critiques I just have to write up, and there’s room for more.  Donate $5 (and email me with your LJ user name), and you’ll get to see ALL THE STORIES.
Like I said, I’d like to hit $1,000, and I think I’ve done the work that even a small donation will get you your money’s worth.  So if you’ve got the cash, please think about helping out the next generation of sci-fi and fantasy writers.