I’m going to Readercon. And I’m reading! Along with 6 of my fellow Viable Paradise attendees, I will be reading at 11 a.m. on Sunday the 11th. I’ve chosen an excerpt from my recently-completed novel The Russian Witch (formerly Cossack’s Witch, formerly the Not-a-Werewolf Book). While this will not be my first reading, it will be my first in many years, and my first since I started selling my work again. I am petrified, of course; especially since I am not at all used to reading to an audience of sober people. I used to read a fair bit in university, and I got laughs and cheers, but those people were all hammered. If you’re going to be in Boston next weekend, please come–sober or not; see me blush, sputter and quaver my way through a bit of my work; and know that as I do, I’ll be picturing you naked. […]
Viable Paradise 2010 about to open for applications
In 2008 I attended Viable Paradise, a week-long speculative fiction workshop held on Martha’s Vineyard. It was the smartest thing I’ve ever done for my writing career. When I applied I was already past the million-word mark, but I had only a few sales under my belt (all a decade ago, too), and a completed novel but no agent. I knew I wanted to write short fiction again, but I hadn’t begun to do so. The instructors of Viable Paradise gave me the tools to take my next steps with confidence, without wasted effort, and with a new sense of excitement and dedication. When I applied for the workshop, my father was dying. I don’t remember whether I talked it over with him; what I do remember is the understanding that came to me with his passing: Time’s short. I know some writers who are content to be hobbyists, to write for an audience of their spouses or to stuff their completed manuscripts in a desk drawer. I’m not one of them. I need my work to be read. And I needed professionals in the field to help me quit wasting time and start writing my best work, submitting it […]
In which I reflect
I’m back from Chicago with a suitcase of laundry, a new handbag, and for the first time, visual records of the place that has come to mean so much to me. If I’m counting correctly, this visit was my eighth time attending CIROBE, the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exhibition. Over the years I’ve become quite attached to the city, most particularly the park across from the Hilton, where I sometimes run; the Art Institute, which houses Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day; and the lakeshore in general, so superior to the same area of Toronto. More than the city, though, it’s the people. I am privileged to work with people so intelligent, friendly and well-read. Between this group and the people of VP, I’ve been in exalted company lately, and I have come away both humbled and encouraged. You, my friends, colleagues and mentors: each of you is something I aspire to be, and I am honoured to have so many of you in my life. […]
Resolution #9
…in my 37-item Viable Paradise followup list is to set myself a deadline for the completion of the Dickensian Fantasy, and also one for the Other Project (henceforth to be known as the Not-a-Werewolf Book). Whatever that deadline turns out to be, I’m pretty sure I’ve already fallen behind. Ditto for my weekly word count target. This week’s word count so far? Well, since I wrote myself a stern note to the effect that blogging, rough notes, and day-career stuff don’t count, I’m sitting at a grand total of about 100. And since day-career has been a week neglected, I’m sitting on four imminent deadlines, one of which is in twelve hours and requires six hours worth of work, in addition to the eating, sleeping and showering that might also be required. As much as I love my day-career, I do heartily wish it operated on a steady year-round schedule. This whole business of Christmas makes me want to bite the hand that feeds me. With that off my chest, I propose to pour myself a nice glass of Tankhouse, start pounding away at that six-hour task, and if I can get it done in five, give myself the reward […]
And Then I Woke Up
Back here in the real world, so little time has passed that the plums in the refrigerator are still good. I am sitting with a cup of rooibos and making myself a very ambitious to-do list. It commences with tearing apart the Dickensian Fantasy: the very thing I swore I had no need to do. It continues with a whole bunch of other things to write, and a number of commitments which I have no doubt will prove onerous at some point, but at the moment feel like the veriest hit of crack. It doesn’t end, of course, until I end. […]