Margo Lanagan's Blog, page 14

NSW Writers' Centre workshop

Sydney people! I'm running a writing workshop, 'Leaping in the Dark: The Craft of Story', at the NSW Writers' Centre on Sunday week. It's six hours' worth of inspiration and hard work.

It's the last workshop I'll be doing for a while—I'm taking at least a year off from workshopping after this—so get in while you can. Bookings are 'strong', they tell me, but there are still some places left.

October noodlings and doodlings

Well, so. Yesterday I finished the lovingkindness story for Yellowcake; it's very loving and kind, but a little sad, too. I took off its broken wing completely in the end, and fattened up its middle. Now it just needs to sit and prove in a corner for a day or two before I read-through-and-fix it and send it off. And then I'll have finished, not just a story, but a whole BOOK!

The design of which (oops! must answer that email) A&U sent to me the other day. I've seen the cover, which is wonderfully yellow and weird and continues the begging-to-be-a-boxed set design that Zoe Sadokierski has done for my collections. The interior theme is moths and locks of hair. It looks a treat.

Re the set of 4 stories, I think the second one will be a story that I've been trying for years to get right. I've left it alone for long enough now that I think I can come back and have another go at it with a reasonable expectation of completing it properly—more than that I'm not prepared to hope! It involves olms and has a steampunkish aura. (Except steampunk wasn't around when I started it, so clearly the problem was just that it was before its time.)

I've received the full set of editors' comments on The Brides of Rollrock Island (or whatever it will be called) now, and I'll be dividing my time between revisions and the 4 stories between now and Christmas. Can I do it all? Well, I aim to. And it might even be publishable; you never know your luck.

The cab rank

I re-did the back end of the story that needed it and sent it off for feedback from the editor. So far have heard good things, but more notes are to come. One product of this crazy rash of deadlines I'm trying to meet is that I find I'm allowing/asking editors to have a say on stories, whereas before I'd just battle through that stage stories sometimes pass through where they have to shatter and be rebuilt, all by myself, and send the finished product at the end pretending it sprang fully for...

I'm back...

...from time at the beach, up the country and visiting family. While I was away I finished one short story, realised that the back end of another needed chopping off and rewriting, and eyed another drafted one from an amiable distance.

I also received an email from my two wonderful editors at Allen & Unwin, with extensive-but-not-frighteningly-so notes on The Brides of Rollrock Island (possibly not to be called that any longer, but we'll see—bloody titles...). And when I got home, an annotated...

Hi to all in 9th-grade English at Fredericksburg Academy!

Thanks for all your comments here - I've had time to glance at the class blog, but I'm travelling right now and unlikely to be able to answer your comments fully before next week.

One thing I can quickly say is that 'Singing My Sister Down' takes place at no particular historical time, except that it must be a time where trucks and pistols are available. It also takes place in no particular country. Although the original tarpit that inspired me was in Africa, the story's not set in Africa, and...

Pretty much the end of the crazy

The Literature Board met today and finished the assessment of the individual New Work grants, which is one part of the obligatory reading that's been taking up my every waking hour since late July. There's a little more business to take care of tomorrow, and then I'll have a weekend to come to grips with the next short story deadline off the rank; we'll see if I can switch hats quickly, from the bureaucrat's (kind of pork-pie-ish) to the writer's (something dreamed up by a crochet artist for ...

'Sea-Hearts' is up for a World Fantasy Award!

Yes, it's true! And in fine company. Congratulations to all nominees.

One of my big jobs for August is done. The Australian/Vogel Award is judged, to all three judges' and A&U's satisfaction. Now we just have to all keep the result under our hats until May next year.

The next week and a bit will be wall-to-wall grant applications. Possibly the weekend after next I'll get to work on a short story. Possibly.

Life is slightly too full...

...of Vogel reading (2 more MSS to go!).

...of Lit Board application reading, thwarted slightly by me dropping my laptop, so I'm continuing on my son's high-school-issue ThinkPad with about an eighth of the screen display missing.

...of the day-job, which now looks to be going on until Christmas.

..of socialising, though I'm not complaining about that, or about weekends at the beach. That's a good kind of fullness.

...and of school visits. Greetings, Abbotsleigh girls! What a fantastic festival y...

A good (long) weekend

I filled up this 4-day weekend by:drafting one short story to the end, typing it up and printing it out for (probably quite a bit of) further workprobably half-drafting a second story which I'm rescuing for a previous draft, which I wrote right to the end but which somehow never really got up from the page and started breathingreading several manuscripts on the Vogel longlist—I've now got 2 shortlisteesreading half the children's and YA New Work (Developing Writers) Literature Board grant...

Clarion West 2011—let's write!

I'm happy to announce that next July, I'll be teaching the third week of Clarion West, the 6-week speculative-fiction writing workshop I attended as a student in 1999.

Although I probably won't do more than glimpse them, I'm very pleased to be in the company of the other instructors, Paul Park, Nancy Kress (who also taught me back in '99), Minister Faust, L. Timmel Duchamp and Charles Stross. What a spread of talent and style! Quick, start rustling up your application now, even as this year's ...