Perusing my favorites today, a friend passed on the following link:
Weekend!
And full of writing and writer-related (and fan-related) fun. Saturday was the World Fantasy Barbecue and Brian Hades of Edge Press spoke about publishing. Though I arrived late (okay, the kids needed school supplies so we were out shopping in the morning) I was told that the speech was excellent. Food was great, and I picked up some classics as well as some new books I haven’t read yet at the raffle. In the evening, all the actors in IFWA Players got together to look at the footage of our play, Armageddon Idol, from last month. Looks like Anna will be intercutting the two cameras to create a DVD for us. Yay, Anna!
Today, though, is my writing day. I woke up with a fantastic idea yesterday, and 2 more plot bunnies have attacked me since.
Day Job Reality
So, school is back in next week and I’ve been at work already for a week. Amazing how energy-draining the day job can be. However, it’s the weekend now and the day I’ve been waiting for. Back to the novel!
Still, it makes me think . . . how much money does a person really need to live on? A friend who is a highly successful Tor author quite deliberately works during the day at a job that is NOT energy-draining. She is very careful with how she spends her money. And, I am continually amazed at how inexpensively my daughter, a university student, lives. True, when her room and board are free (she lives with me) it helps a lot. Still, she is dedicated to travel to certain cons and to maintain her motorcycle; but clothing, entertainment expenses — she doesn’t have a cell or any of the electronic devices to which most young people are tied — she very simply does without.
IFWA Workshop
Every year, my main writers’ group, IFWA (Imaginative Fiction Writer’s Association) runs a Clarion-style writing workshop for two days in conjunction with the local convention, often sharing a guest author with the con. In the past, we have had Edo Von Belkom, Mike Resnick, Joe Haldeman, Patrick and Honna Swensen, Rob Sawyer, James Allan Gardener, Dave Wolverton and Rebecca Bradley. Having the chance to work for two days in a small group (maximum twelve participants) with such stellar authors had been invaluable–not to mention the information about the business of writing that we have been able to pick up over lunch.
This year, our guest was Randy Schroeder who writes under a number of pen names (I have a collection of short stories, “Crooked Timber,” under the name, A. M. Arruin) as well as teaching Science Fiction at Mount Royal College. The two days were awesome. Each participant had a short story or novel submission (3 chapters and an outline) critiqued by the group. Randy grouped our stories to illustrate writing points and followed each story up with an exercise to practice the points covered. It was great. I got a real “aha” moment for my specific story, as well as picking up a number of points that I will want to mull over as I consider my writing.
We spent some time contrasting the processes of right and left brain writing, affirming the need for both and looking at ways of developing both craft and “godfire.” Of course, each writer has to develop her own self-awareness of what types of craft she needs to work on, and that self-understanding needs to change as her writing improves. One note I wrote from this workshop was, “once you reach a certain level of craft, the challenge you have to overcome is your own patterns and internal barriers.” To me, that said a lot. Craft can be developed systematically, and I feel my craft level has developed well. But godfire? How do you stimulate that? More difficult, but one way that Randy suggested (and on reflection I realized it is something I have found successful in the past–though I was never conscious of using it) is to set barriers for yourself. One he gave us, was “brainstorm how you might write a time travel story in which no one actually travels through time.” You get the idea.
Armageddon Idol
The IFWA Players put on their annual musical last Friday night and it turned out great. No one messed up on their lines or songs and the lighting didn’t cut out on us like it did last year. The audience laughed in all the right places — it was great! My husband showed up to film us and arrived a few minutes before we started while my daughter, Holly and I were rehearsing a song. We were both wearing wigs with different hairstyle and colour from our own and he didn’t recognize us until we waved and said “Hi!” It has been very cool, rehearsing, sewing costumes and doing this project with Holly.
Another highlight of Conversion was that my other daughter, Heather, came in second in the Robin Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest. Yay, Heather! I read her story and it is pretty incredible, so now I have to read the other finalists to see what the field was like.