HSU IT Department

Well, I did not get accepted to Clarion West. It was a very complimentary and encouraging rejection ("very competitive group...our readers were impressed with your work...please apply again..blah blah blah") which of course I immediately think, "Oh, that's what they tell everyone."

How could they not recognize my genius? How??! Grrrr.

However, this means that Mr Psmith and I can once again do season tickets to our local Ren Fest, which is a Nice Thing. A chance to ponce about in hoop skirts and a tight bodice while drinking ale and singing bawdy traditional folk songs is not to be sneezed at.

Things have been mad busy on other fronts, between trying to finish a freelance job which has been postponed twice (by the client, not by yrs truly) but is now nearing completion (which means yay, I can soon get paid), Mr. Psmith's birthday yesterday (which required baking the family-tradition Grandma's Dark Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with Boiled White Icing, a terrifically sticky endeavor with a profoundly delicious conclusion), a two-week guest lecturing stint for a graduate-level course, the need to assist in the testing phase of a standards revision, and of course the usual work stuff.

Plus I'm in the middle of re-reading Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, which is soooooo good I can hardly put the book down. I nearly came to an untimely end yesterday as I had my nose buried in the second volume while walking from the parking garage to work and tripped merrily off the curb into traffic. Good thing that lady in the green Kia had had her morning coffee.

Phew. No wonder I'm tired.

Clarion West just announced their author/teacher lineup for 2013: Elizabeth Hand, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Justina Robson, Ellen Datlow, and Samuel R. Delany. Four are among my favorite writers EVER, the fifth I'd never heard of but her blog cracks me up, and as for the sixth, well, y'all know who Joe Hill is, right? Heart-Shaped Box and all that. In short, major star power all around that spans the last fifty years of speculative fiction.

(Mr Psmith wants me to go just so I can ask Neil Gaiman what Terry Pratchett is like as a writing partner, heh heh heh...)

So yes, this is the year I apply. Next month is my online writing group's SSIAW (Short Story in a Week; it's like NaNoWriMo only, well, shorter) which is a great chance to crank out four stories, giving me a respectable number to choose from for submission. I used to be all about the novel writing, but I'm gradually being seduced by the short story format: it's like the difference between a giant canvas and a page from a medieval Book of Hours, where every brushstroke matters.

One of the ones I think I'll submit is the one that Big Name Magazine unofficially accepted back in October. They still haven't contacted me about a contract. *iz annoyed* I don't want to give up on them because, well, they're Big Name Magazine. And not just Big Name now but Big Name in the history of sci fi as well. So, I guess I keep waiting to find out if I've really been invited to the big dance or if it's just a shoddy trick being played on me by the Popular People and there's a bucket of pig blood poised over my head. Not that there will be Carrie-level vengeance or anything if you jilt me, Big Name Magazine. Really. Honest. Take your time. It's not like I'm ANXIOUS or anything.

Meanwhile I have two fests coming up in October, not to mention the incredibly, horrifyingly, beyond embarrassingly late custom fic that was purchased on the loveforlily auction. (I suck, I really do. I deserve to be flayed or shunned or deprived of wine. Wait, forget that last one...)

'Nuff said. Clarion applications open in December. Eyes on the prize, baby, eyes on the prize...

Somehow, I have no idea how (ah, the mysterious ways of the Web!) I stumbled onto three LJ'ers who are currently attending Clarion West. Now Clarion West is something I've thought about/dreamed about/desperately wanted/been terrified to apply to for several many years. It's part of why I joined the online writers group I belong to, to polish my skills to the point that I wouldn't feel a total schlemiel when and if I accumulated sufficient spinal material to try for it. So -- although I feel vaguely stalkery for doing so -- I went back to the beginning and read all their entries about Clarion to date (there are two weeks left), and positively wallowed in the discussions of writer-instructors (Elizabeth Bear! Nalo Hopkinson!!), surprise guests (OMG Ted Chiang, only one of the best writers evah for whom all superlatives would be woefully inadequate), writing, critiques, readings, lectures, tips, and of course books, etc etc etc. All the while picturing myself THERE. *sigh* original Clarion at UCSD is equally stellar this year (Elizabeth Hand! Kim Stanley Robinson!!!). *sigh(2)*

Applications for Clarion 2010 are due sometime in the early spring, I think. Must start gearing up. What's the worst that can happen? It's not like I'll get laughed at for trying, right? Grrrr. Must locate and purchase self-discipline and spinal material at earliest opportunity. Wonder if they carry it at Wal-Mart? No, maybe the local co-op, I don't want that artificial mass-produced stuff that craps out at crucial moments...