Weekly reading/watching meme

[petronia]

Blank slate for this week -- not going to bother to do questions -- I didn't read at all, I was trying to get something written for Clarion/Clarion West. Which I failed at, for the record. XD;; Like, very-last-minute, if-I-only-had-two-more-hours failed, which isn't very clever. On the other hand, the ending isn't quite there, so if I'd managed to submit it I wouldn't have expected to make the cut. I mean, surely they'll be able to meet their quota easily with short stories that have proper endings? XD;

What I need to do is put it away for two days, then tackle this ending issue again -- there's something structural missing. It puzzles me deeply that the thing came in at ~5K words, I was certain I would go over 30 manuscript pages and have to cut. It's a parody of a certain kind of longform magazine writing, and I have a good idea how long those things are, so. I really wanted to do Clarion but at the moment I care about this internal issue more. XD;;; Kara said something to the effect that a second draft is a first draft trimmed by 10%, and I thought that was nuts, because I always have to go back and add. But I did trim what she read by 10% and it got a whole lot better, so either I don't usually write first drafts or I don't try to cram this many ideas into them. Once the plot started falling into place it became really fun/fast to write, but before that it was incredibly painful for like... four weeks... Eventually I literally took a chunk from my Libs OWOB writeup that I happened to like and iterated on that (the end result has nothing to do with the Libs).

***

I did watch The Life of Pi, though! Parts of it were annoying, weirdly paced, or throw up ideas that are then poorly executed, but I suspect I'm taking issue with the book (which I haven't read) rather than with the film. The film totally deserves its Oscar for best achievement in large CG felines.

More to the point, this weekend I'll have birthday parties, and next weekend I'm headed to Cuba with my sister, where my only concern will be which book to read on the beach.

Comments

[fromastudio]

I feel you are a way better writer than basically anyone who was at Clarion South with me, although admittedly I think the Down Under incarnation was far less competitive than the US Clarions. But if it's more important to get this story right then yes. (I felt I got more out of the friendships I made at Clarion rather than the writing/critique process per se, although admittedly I should have been more prepared than I was and written a couple of stories in advance of the workshop - I am regrettably terrible at writing one short story per week even when I have nothng else to do but write and read.)


(happy very belated birthday!)

[petronia]

Oh -- I was trying to remember who it was I knew who'd done one of the Clarions. XD So it was you!

I have no idea how competitive the US workshops are. I know very little overall, actually; the less I know the less I'll worry myself over it, so. XD;; I think I'll aim to actually finish a few origfic pieces this year, so these considerations won't be so abstract.

(Thank you!)

[karalee]

I've definitely been, let's say surprised, at the quality of some stuff that came out of Clarion (as found thru author's notes at the end of stories in Daily Science Fiction or what have you). Then again, CASSIE CLAIRE WAS A TEACHER LAST YEAR at the mothership Clarion, so that just goes to show ....................

I have similar goals to you, let us weep over writing together XD

[karalee]

ALSO have a great time at parties and while traveling! Take photos? :D

[petronia]

Good reminder -- always forget to bring camera with me these days. XD

[acchikocchi.livejournal.com]

Ha, that was me, except I pushed the application through on the stroke of midnight anyway--the entire process was more about a personal resolution than any serious expectation of getting in. Re: DW comments though, having read several Clarion blogs since, the participants certainly seem to be a mixed bag. I get the impression there is a certain pool dedicated to the sff genre who apply regardless of the instructor lineup, and then for the rest it varies wildly year to year based on the sort of people who apply to workshop with Cassandra Clare vs the sort of people who apply to workshop with Samuel Delany. (And then there are people like this (http://www.douglaslucas.com/blog/2010/01/14/clarion-west-2008-part-4-of-10/) guy (http://www.douglaslucas.com/blog/2010/04/24/clarion-west-2008-part-5-of-10/)...)

What surprised me was that with the exception of one dude (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/06/clarion-workshop-alumni-interviews-kenneth-schneyer) no one I read seemed to have much of a background in, well, fanfiction? I mean, that's only limited to what I read, of course, but there were none of the veiled references to, say, "online writing groups" one might expected. Which obviously is not a net positive or negative, but an interesting point. There were definitely multiple participants who said they'd had no experience with peer critique before, which is maybe unreasonably surprising to me, aha.

This is all to say, I'm fairly sure you'd be a shoe-in. XD; How useful it would be... well, it seems the nature of the workshop makes it beneficial regardless, especially for motivational purposes. But you'd want to watch who was teaching, for sure.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, chalk me up as an "apply to workshop with Delany" type. XD; I really honestly should have used an older story -- my personal sense from reading what's out there is that a short story that I'm happy with is "publishable" by the going standard, so I probably have as good a chance as anyone. XD; But well.

TBF I think "peer critique" in the workshop sense differs from the fanfiction "beta process" -- I have lovely betas but at least where I'm concerned, I don't typically put fanfics I consider "finished" up for further critique. Anyway, had I managed the form letter I would have said that I haven't had peer critique in this specific format since I was in the twelfth grade (and it wasn't hugely useful then; I've always had problems finding the right peer level XD;;). I've had some attempts at origfic-centred writer support circles that sort of petered out, I think mostly because of the projects themselves not going anywhere. I'm actually seriously considering putting together something now, but with the same ppl or not or offline or...