Brenda Cooper's Blog, page 24
July 2, 2011
Clarion West Write-a-thon Update and Misc.
Well, I'm reduced to my portable computer at the moment. My Sony all-in-one gave up the ghost yesterday morning and refused to turn on. No, I didn't lose any writing files – I back those up. But I decided I needed my email badly enough to pay to get it transferred (I could do this myself, but not with a computer that won't power up). In that hopefully-not-lost email is the data I need to send out my weekly update to the people who sponsored me – so I'll miss week two, I guess. Have to figure out how to make that up. I also decided that with the rest of my ecosystem going Mac (driven by the iphone to the ipad to the Air) I'd just bite the bullet and go to the iMac for a desktop. This will probably mean some grumping as I've lost the ability to use the PC to do the stuff I couldn't figure out on the Mac, not to mention a chunk of cash outlay I wasn't expecting.
Here's hoping the guys with Geek Squad hats do well, especially given that I kind of lost it over the fact that they felt a need to charge an extra thirty bucks to load a copy of Office for the Mac that I already owned onto the new computer. The $150 transfer fee (higher than normal because of the dead computer in the process) made perfect sense, but this last charge made none at all to me. Now, I manage an IT shop, so I know that the customer being grumpy doesn't help staff feel like doing a great job. So let's hope they do well in spite of me. :)
So…no writing today. Not because I don't have other tools, but there are only so many hours in a day and figuring out what to do and doing it took some time.
On the plus side, I got to meet most of the Clarion West students yesterday. That was fun. This is the reason for the Write-a-thon – the hopeful, interesting, faces that we may all get to read published work from in the future. I also got a completely unsolicited compliment on my story, "The Hebras and the Demons and the Damned" which is in this the new Year's Best Sixteen volume edited by David Hartwell. Sometimes those comments show up on the days you need them.
Tomorrow will be more writing oriented. I promise.
June 27, 2011
Write-a-thon Update
I'm safely back from Wellspring, where a good time was had by all. Certainly, by me. I loved meeting the other participants, my foot allowed a little more walking than I expected (yeah!! Getting better is good). I managed to get out two stories….so that actually meets the story promise for the write-a-thon. I won't count them for sure until I get them submitted somewhere, but one is set in my Silver Ship series world, which I'm trying to ease back into so I can finish the fourth book in the series. The other is one of those short 1,000 word pieces I like to play with. I should get feedback on those from a favored friend and first reader later this week.
On other fronts, life and a lack of sleep has left me behind on a project for Futurismic and work has crept up with some extra demands in trade for the week off. Which is the long way of saying not much writing will happen for a few days.
The next big promise for the write-a-thon is novel revision. I'll talk about that when I get it started this weekend.
For a thought to leave you with (found on a fence in Lake Geneva, WI)
June 22, 2011
Write-a-thon and Workshop Post #3
Wellspring continues to be fabulous. Last night, we read at the Hopleaf Bar in Chicago – a lovely event that Bill Shunn put together for us. Six of us each did short pieces and Bill read a poem. Every reader got ovations, and the beer (or cider in my case) was great! The next to last reader was reading a tense scene set in the grand canyon when a thunderous storm started sending flashes of lighting through the window onto her face and made the audience jump. The universe clapping for her, I think!
On the write-a-thon, I'm now about 3200 words into my short story. That feels a little behind, but I might be able to find more time today. Don't forget that if you sponsor me, you'll get an email with WIP every week.
June 20, 2011
Clarion Write-a-Thon and WellSpring Workshop Update
Okay – so I'm almost 2,000 words into the story, and a little bit stuck. I need a bridging event to get me from the set-up to the end. So I decided to stop for this check-in and let my hind-brain work on it. There are a few more writing hours today, anyway.
Crit on my first fifty was full of good ideas, some big enough I have to really think about them. I want to start working on fixing things right now, but I'll have one more feedback session this week and I should wait. Besides, I want to finish this story and get one down on my goals for the workshop. Always, there is more than one thing to do.
Not to mention I'm now reading a GREAT YA I downloaded after I heard about it over dinner last night. Thirteen Reasons Why. It's a brilliant story. Hanging out with writers always results in more stuff to-be-read. Sigh.
We are back at the Caribou, a pile of writers staring at various screens and doing nefarious things. The sky remains full of water and dark clouds, threatening but not yet following through. They tell us we'll have real thunder-storms tomorrow.
June 19, 2011
Write-a-thon and Workshop: Day 1
Well, this is officially part of the Clarion West write-a-thon. At the moment. I'm in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, at the first full day of the Wellspring writing workshop. So like the Clarion students, I'm trying to learn and write and socialize and adjust and get used to new sleeping quarters all at once.
About half of us here have been to Clarion or Clarion West (I have not).
So far, I'm over 1200 words into a fresh short story, and I'm so tired I have absolutely no clue whether it's brilliant or bollixed. I've been writing long enough not to be too freaked out about that.
I'm hoping for a fabulous thunderstorm or two. I'll get my first critiques of my work tomorrow, and I'm a little bit worried. I've given this novel to one of my favorite first readers, and he didn't like it one little bit. So for the first time in years, I'm a little apprehensive.
Back to writing (many of use are camping in Caribou Coffee, writing). In the meantime, if you want to sponsor me in the write-a-thon (all funds go to help sponsor Clarion West), drop by my personal page for the write-a-thon.
Oh – and the skies are "interesting"
June 17, 2011
Mayan Reading (Watching!): The Fountain
One
of the authors whose books I've been using for reference in this time period mention Darren Aronofsky's movie "The Fountain" to me. It really does seem to mirror the Mayan sense of time, and I liked it very much. It's part new age trip, part science fiction, and all love story, complete with some magical cinematography. It's very strange in a good way.
June 15, 2011
Clarion West Write-a-thon
I'm one of many participating writers in the Clarion West write-a-thon. My personal page for the write-a-thon lists my goals. I usually sponsor writers, but don't actually participate. This year Nisi Shawl asked me so nicely I agreed. This is good: external goals always push me.
Here's what I hope to accomplish: I start out the Clarion season by heading back to Wisconsin to a workshop where a number of professional writers will be critiquing each others novels. So just like the students will get feedback on their work, I will too. Then I'll spend about four weeks getting my second draft done of the novel, a YA near-future post-collapse novel set mostly in Portland, Oregon. I'll post about the experience and what I hear, and how it is to get and use feedback as a working professional. I also want to get two short stories done, and two poems. If you sponsor me – even a little – you'll get emails that include short excerpts of the work. You'll even get the poems, which I'm afraid will be bad since I haven't written much poetry lately, even though my first published work was poetry (that's my extra push for the write-a-thon – digging out my poetry skills, which have rusted a bit).
I will also sponsor some writers.
And…I think you all should too. I hope you sponsor me, but no matter what, sponsor at least one of your favorite writers there! Clarion West does a great job of producing a fabulous experience for the students, and it's expensive. These sponsorships help. Donations can be made by PayPal and even $5.00 helps – it all adds up.
June 12, 2011
Purely personal: Our garden is awesome
Our garden is really pretty this year. We got a huge boost of a start with help from a management team (purchased in a charity auction) and have been trying to keep up. The iris are particularly pretty this year, both dragons are surrounded by flowers, and there is a dog or two in the pictures as well. A full set can be found on Picasa Web
June 8, 2011
Guest Blog up at Printsasia: Why read SF & F?
Like most genre writers, I occasionally get the "that's sweet dear" response when I tell people I write science fiction. I want to take people and shake them up a bit and demonstrate how many classic and current bestselling work is science fiction or fantasy. I want to mention the popular Game of Thrones on HBO, the many SF movies, the classics like 1984 and the highly relevant new work like Who Fears Death? and ShipBreaker. I want to tell people our work is easy to read and thoughtful, full of character and setting and driving tensions. So when the bookstore Printsasia asked me to do a guest blog, I chose just that topic. Drop by and and give the post a readm make a comment, list your favorite books.
June 2, 2011
New column up at Futurismic, in which I rant a bit about climate change
Stop by Futurismic and take a look if you get a chance. This was a particularly tough article to write because the problem is so diffuse and our actual knowledge so hard to quantify. Climate is a complex system full of chaotic elements and strange attractors, including political strangeness. But the fact that it's difficult doesn't excuse us from the need to make some fundamental changes. I'm an optimist at heart: we can make changes and some or most of them will be good for other goals in the long run. We can build new industries and creatively dismantle old ones, we can get ourselves prepared better for the rest of the population boom (and the numbers there are very scary), we can do things that are better for our overall health.
