teamzerbert

ecmyers @ 03:07 pm: Write-a-thon: Week Two
Not the most productive week ever, but I did make my weekly goal, with 5,311 words! So here we are, at the beginning of Chapter 8:

14,462 / 65,000 (22.0%)

I have a better sense of the shape of the plot to come, though I know this is all very first drafty and will need lots of revision. I'm looking forward to it :) I am fortunate enough to have tomorrow off from work, so I hope to get a significant amount of my weekly goal done, and make progress on some other pressing projects. I should also get cracking on one of my promised short story revisions this week.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to the computer replacement for this summer's Clarion West class. They now have nearly enough to purchase new laptops for those affected, and I know they are all incredibly grateful for the support of strangers in the community.

Tags: cw, quantum coin, wat

catrambo @ 09:25 am: Response Times at Fantasy Magazine
Having had someone think that the speed of the rejection had something to do with the quality of the sub - no! There's no correlation. However, I've been trying to trim our response time down a little because I know I tend to pick the quick-responding magazines when first sending a story out. If your rejection arrives quickly, it is a more accurate reflection of  my schedule than the quality of the writing.

Tags: fantasy magazine, slush

theclownhunt @ 11:25 am: Laptops stolen at Clarion West
Several people have forwarded this news, but just in case you haven't heard, four laptops were stolen Friday at Clarion West while the students were in class downstairs. Here's an update from Neile Graham:

As I'm sure many of you have heard already, someone broke into the house our students are living in and stole four laptops and some personal effects while the students were in class downstairs. I feel terrible for them--some lost work, some lost family photos, some have had to go online and change passwords, etc. It has been a harrowing experience for them--more than just annoying, because a laptop while you're at the workshop is almost a important as a hand. Not only do you write on it and use it to mail your story to Kinko's, but it's also your lifeline to home and your personal support network.

The students are all upset, of course, but trying hard not to let it ruin their time at the workshop, and the community, especially here, is rallying around them with loaners and someone has offered some office supplies, and others have started sending donations to start a replacement fund.

This has really restored my faith in humanity.

If you have an idea about how to help and want to contact us about this, the email is info @ clarionwest . org, and if you want to donate, you can use the paypal button on our site at http://clarionwest.org/donate. Please say it's for computer replacement so we can keep the funds separate from our organizational fundraising.

If you want to mail a donation in, our address is on that page, too, and again, please include a note to be clear that the money is for the computer replacement fund.

catrambo @ 09:20 pm: Karaluvian
Finished "Karaluvian" and sent it off to the person I'd promised it to. Whew! 6k chewy words of literary s&s goodness.

Plus a bunch of Fantasy Magazine and SFWA Copyright Committee stuff.

catrambo @ 05:09 pm: Current Reading

• Just finished James Morrow's The Philosopher's Apprentice, which I liked more than Oryx and Crake, which it reminded me of. Recommended.
  
• Just finished Marketing for Dummies, which had some parts that were useful.
• Almost done with Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which is a LOT more fun than I expected.
  
• Partially into Martin Millar's The Good Fairies of New York and am not convinced I like it yet.
• Partially into Farah Mendleson's The Rhetorics of Fantasy and keep getting slowed down by note-taking.
• Have barely skimmed the surface of John Crowley's The Solitudes and Fraser's The Golden Bough.
• Tempted to read the new Laurel K. Hamilton and see if it's any better.
• Need to reread Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun.

Tags: reading

ecmyers @ 12:54 am: urgent donations needed for Clarion West students
As reported elsewhere on the internet (such as here and here), someone broke into the Clarion West house and stole four laptops and some personal belongings. This being a writing workshop, and an expensive one at that, this is a pretty significant problem.

I believe that temporary computers have been secured for the victims, but they still need to replace their computers after the workshop. I don't know their specific situations, but in addition to the tuition and housing expenses, these four students are also losing six weeks of income from their jobs, have to pay rent and bills back home for the duration, and in some cases have even quit their jobs in order to attend CW. Throwing on the cost of a new computer is an even bigger hardship.

As a writer, my computer is one of the essentials in my life, so I know how horrible this must be for everyone involved. If you have a computer in good working condition to donate to one of these unlucky students, please contact info@clarionwest.org to see if they can use it. Otherwise, I think cash donations are more helpful at this point, whatever you can spare. You can donate directly via PayPal at this page, but please mark it for "Computer Replacement" or such. Your donations are tax deductible. Clarion West is classified as a non-profit educational organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Federal EIN 91-1352168).

If this had happened to me during my time at Clarion West, it would have been emotionally and financially devastating. I'm shocked and angry that the workshop experience has been marred for this year's class, when all they should have had to worry about was writing the best work possible and learning as much as they can. I hope they can still have an enjoyable and educational time; it would be a lot easier if they could recover from this with minimal loss. Money's tight for everyone always, but I'm going to contribute what I can, and I hope you'll consider doing so too. Please also pass on this news and request for help as you see fit.

catrambo @ 09:39 pm: Moving Gracefully Through the Universe
Sending pissy notes to an editor about how you won't be submitting again because you worked very hard on that last submission doesn't fly well for several reasons:

1) Most of us work hard on our stories. At least 90% of mine are like sweating blood. Not to sound too harsh, but cry me a river, dude.
2) Rejection is hard but necessary. I submitted a number of stories to Fantasy Magazine before selling one to them.  I would guess that my subs to F&SF number in the couple of dozen by now.  And there are writers who are easily on their 13th, 14th, maybe more rejection to Fantasy since I became co-editor and I think that's awesome and will gladly keep reading their stories because they're getting better with every one they write.
3) You are violating Cat's first rule: Don't be a jackass.

Tags: fantasy magazine

catrambo @ 05:08 pm: Well Poop
From several people on my friendslist:

Someone broke into the sorority house Clarion West is at and stole 4 laptops, clothing, and other personal possessions from 4 rooms on the 3rd floor. Clarion West is soliciting donations of either good used laptops or cash for laptops via the Clarion West administration. If  youncan help, let Leslie or Neile know at info@clarionwest.org

catrambo @ 04:34 pm: The current Write-a-thon story is based on an idea Ben Burgis and I were throwing around. Here's two excerpts from what I just sent him:

They said the Marielitas were escoria – scum. The abuelitas muttered it to each other, and the young girls coming home from school clustered together like butterflies, looking thrilled and worried whenever the wind whistled at them. The newspapers claimed Miami was under siege, that Castro had loosed the worst from the Cuban prisons and madhouses.

The respectable Cubans already in Miami by 1980 – the ones who weren’t driving the boats to bring over their cousins and brothers and grandparents who’d managed to flee to the port of Mariel – were quick to repudiate the incoming. Some of them put bumper stickers on their Pintos and Caddies: No me digas Marielito.

and

When I got back to the bike shop, I poured hot tap water in a cup, added a jasmine tea bag, sniffed the delicate aroma, and  added a half mug’s worth of sooty liquid from the coffeepot, ink and rusty bolts thick. It’d wake me up.

“You.”

I looked up. Standing in the doorway was tall, dark, and pink shirt. A lot of women would have melted under the force of those black eyes, crows-wing eyebrows, lashes like a smolder of incense. But something about the flatness of his stare, the swamp-water shine of his hair, gave me the creeps.

“Me,” I said, half question, half challenge.

He glanced around at the clutter of parts, the pegboarded tools, the skull and crossbone neon behind the front counter. I was still getting the hang of being a business owner, after having been a waitress, a bike mechanic, a student of paraconsistent logic.

And, as always, now and forever, monster hunter.

ann_leckie @ 05:41 pm: Independence Day
Very full schedule today! We hit the Webster Groves parade, which is always fun, and then the Community Days carnival thing. Last year, Paidhi Boy thought he might try the Tilt-A-Whirl, but once it started up, regretted his choice.

This year he decided to try it again, with much better results. Though what he'd been waiting all year for was the bumper cars. He got his bumper carring in, did the big slide, the Scrambler (which was for some bizzare reason called "the sizzler") and the swings. Which about gave me palpitations. Yes, it's a very tame ride. I loved the swings when I was a kid. I knew he'd love the swings. But he was so high up. I faked my way through it, though--smiled and waved as he came around, of course all was well.

We ran into one of Paidhi Girl's school friends, who asked urgently, "Where's Paidhi Girl?"

"She's at Girl Scout camp," I said, which she was. Today was the last day, and we went straight from the carnival to camp to get her. She'd spent two weeks swimming, and riding horses. The horse riding was the whole point of the camp, and she had an award from the show they'd had yesterday, she and her horse won "Cutest Couple." Her horse was named Jack, and Jack walked very slowly and halted a lot if you told him to walk, but if he was just going somewhere on his own, he moved quite briskly, and at the show he trotted around the corners three times absolutely perfectly but the fourth time he just stopped and wouldn't go, but he was still a good horse, actually he was a pony, and one day there was a spider as big as her hand in the tent, and also lots of crickets, but all you had to do with those was pick them up and throw them out, and she passed the test that let her go in the deepest part of the pool, which she never had in previous years because she couldn't float on her back, and her unit had to hop (set the tables and serve food at meals) four times when all the other units only hopped twice.

And they seem to have discontinued the unit songs. When I went to that very same camp, and even stayed in the same unit Paidhi Girl just did (and hopped!), and did the horses and all, there was no way to avoid knowing at least the refrain of Kiamecia's song, and Tonda's as well--even if you weren't in either of those units. But Paidhi Girl knew nothing of such things. Not a huge surprise--last year I discovered that not only Awhenasa's song, but Awhenasa's Super Secret Ritual that involved being given a Super Secret Name, was completely unknown to Paidhi Girl, who had just spent two weeks in Awhenasa.


So now we're all back home, and stuffed with barbecue, and are resting, waiting for the fireworks tonight. Well, Paidhi Girl is checking up on her fish, who I've been feeding for two weeks. Her pleco is getting bigger and bigger, some of those guppies are freaking huge, how big do guppies actually get? But anyway. One of her guppies is right this moment producing more guppies. One of which, Paidhi Girl reports, seems to have an extra fin in a funny place. "It might not live," I told her. "We'll just have to wait and see."

But really, on July 4th, it's all about the parade, the carnival, and the fireworks.

ann_leckie @ 07:12 pm: Wow!
Mr. Leckie walked in the door and I said, "They found the rest of Metropolis!"

And he stopped in his tracks, and said, "What?" And I said it again and he swore.

Metropolis is our Christmas tradition. We have several versions of it. The fairly recent restoration? Is lovely, they did a lot of work on it. And I actually like Moroder's. Please tell me there's going to be an edition with the newly discovered stuff restored!

They found the rest of Metropolis! Holy crap!

######

And speaking of holy crap. Surf over to Helix and check out Vylar Kaftan's "Breaking the Vessel."

Vy read the first half as part of a group reading at Wiscon. (The other readers were the awesome Rachel Swirsky, M K Hobson, and Jennifer Pelland.) I have been waiting for July 1 to come so I could read the whole darn story. Go, read it! There are also great stories by Tina Connoly, Samantha Henderson, Ruth Nestvold, and Jennifer Pelland, and poetry by Ada Milenkovic Brown and Jane Yolen.

Go! Read!

ultradark @ 06:41 pm: Correction to Zizek review
I was just nosing around on 3 Quarks Daily and saw a discussion of my review in The Brooklyn Rail of the latest Slavoj Zizek book, In Defense of Lost Causes. Whoah! Did I really describe Hegel as a "17th-century philosopher"? Yikes. The correct dates for Hegel's birth and death—which will now be imprinted in my mind for the rest of my life—would be 1770-1831. So I was off by a couple centuries on the period of one of the most important philosophers in history, who wrote extensively on such 18th-century topics as the French Revolution.  Thanks to those who caught it.

Tags: corrections, writing

ecmyers @ 01:12 pm: what?
The Fly: The Opera.

'Nuff said.

catrambo @ 09:17 pm: A Great Man
In response to an e-mail, someone said that I am a great man.

I think that's sort of sweet, although I've been trying to figure out the gender implications of it.

I sometimes try to imagine what I'd be like if I'd been born male. This is how I imagine that alter ego:

• He has a wry, self-deprecating sense of humor and tends to be a listerner rather than speaker. He tells good stories once you get a few drinks in him.
  
• He never got married, but came close a few times. He's pretty goddamn pimp with the ladies, actually. The dude gets around.
  
• He travels a lot and has fished all over the world.
  
• He is a bit of a slob, but cleans up nicely.
  
• He studied comparative lit or anthropology at an Ivy league school and knows more about parapsychology than is really healthy.
  
• He is patient and kind with both crying babies, possibly redeemable idiots, and everyone in between.
  
• Because he is my fantasy figure, he runs 3-4 times a week and also is a black belt in judo.
  

Tags: feminism, gender bias

ecmyers @ 02:57 pm: say what now?
I really see no need for a remake of The Prisoner. On the other hand, Ian McKellen gives me hope--I'm guessing he'll be Number 2. And Patrick McGoohan's involvement is probably also a good sign. At least we'll always still have the original series if they screw this up!

catrambo @ 09:20 am: Ten Tips For a New Writer
Taken from an e-mail to someone:

1) Some writers have gotten published by putting stuff up online - more have gone the traditional route. John Scalzi sold his second book after putting the first one up online. He blogs at http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/ and often has useful stuff to say about writing and publishing. I would suggest not putting up complete book-length work. I do have a number of short stories that have been published once, and which are available free online. I consider maintaining an online presence very useful for a writer, and many others seem to agree.

2) The most important thing is to write often, and daily if you can manage it. Go go go.

3) Remember that what you say online is available to a wide range of people across the world. I am the editor of Fantasy Magazine, for example, and got forwarded a copy of your post.

4) The important thing about building a career is writing and getting stuff circulating. If you are sending your novel off to a publisher, that's great, and you're on the right track. Be aware that it often takes a LONG time for agents and publishers to reply. This is why it's good to have several projects, so you can shift to something new while waiting to hear back.

5) Some people will tell you writing short stories is how to build a career. Others will tell you novels are how to do it. The truth is, people have done it both ways, and people have failed to do it both ways. I have had reasonably good luck with short stories, and they certainly are less of a time sink than a novel.

6) Don't try to write in a vacuum. Join an online writing group like Online Writers Workshop or Critters, and start looking at other people's work and getting yours looked at.

7) It may be you are full of genius. If so, there are some ways to jump-start your career. Win one of the Writers of the Future competitions, or the Asimov's award for College Students (depending on your age). Get published in the Magazine of F&SF, Asimov's or Analog. Getting that novel is right up there with that as well.

8) If you have stuff to send out, send it out. Go look at the guidelines for manuscript formatting on the SFWA.org site and follow them religiously. "Here is a story I hope you will consider for publication" is a fine and upstanding cover letter.

9. Read voraciously, in and out of the field.

10) All of this is just my opinion. Different things work for different people. The only thing I can say with confidence is that if you run into someone who says that their way is the only way to write, you should ignore them. Try lots of things, find out what works for you, and do it lots.

Tags: teaching, writing

catrambo @ 08:42 am:

Clockwork Phoenix is out.

I'm happy with the story I have in there - it's based on an experience where someone thought I was the blind date meeting them in a coffee shop when I wasn't actually the blind date, who had apparently ditched them.

There is an interview with me, conducted by Marshall Payne, up at The Fix, which includes mention of the CP story.

Today I'm knocking a couple more short items off the list, getting some words down, and headed into the city come evening to hear Mary Rosenblum read. It's cooler today, supposed to get up in the 70s-80s, so the cats won't be little fur puddles.

The Surgeon's Tale, referenced several times in that interview, continues to hover in the #2 spot in the Million Writers Award.

Tags: clockwork phoenix, interviews, million wrters award, surgeon's tale

catrambo @ 10:22 pm: Why?
Why are none of my readers writing to swoon over the awesome and win dripping through the honeycomb of my prose???

Tags: moon's accomplice, wankery

catrambo @ 09:28 pm: Laser Thumbs of Death
The move back to a mostly-Mac (with one Windows XP machine and a Linux one) household has been fraught with peril so far. Right now I've got the Vista laptop cracked out again and used it this morning to record Margaret Ronald's "When the Gentlemen Go By' for Clarkesworld here (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/)  The Mac will go to the Home for Wayward Macs sometime in the next couple of days and hopefully get a new video card.

I am halfway through John Crowley's The Solitudes, first of four for ReaderCon. We'll see if I get all the way through the four book cycle or not.

Other projects in the works: a game module, an essay on superhero fiction, two interviews, prepping for Tuesday's reading and Wednesday's class, more poking at things other than the novel, six stories, a YA proposal, and several pair-up projects.

Tags: fantasy magazine, projects, readercon, reading, updates

fishywish @ 09:00 pm: write!
Write-a-thon, week one:

About 2200 words on five different stories. A snippet from the latest:

The Bride is veiled in fine silk like a pale worm, unfinished and unready for flight. It is too soon; she fears the moment when the silk will be stripped away. Beyond the veil, everyone and everything is aether. They float, like feathers, like hope.