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Finally, the last of my Taos posts. After almost two months to digest this, and plenty of time staring out at the ocean from a deck chair, I think I have put together some thoughts that are semi-cogent. I know, maybe I should spend more time in a deck chair, but I can’t get work to buy one for me.

So…two weeks with writers in the mountains. Nothing that Nancy or Walter can do will prepare a group of people for each other and how they will co-habitate. Suffice it to say that writer culture still trumps writer frailty.

At the time of the workshop, there was some friction among some writers. Some writers seemed competitive and other writers seemed to dislike each other. One of the writers left before the workshop was over for a variety of reasons. At the time, perhaps, you might not be capable of feeling comfortable, because your own writing is being critiqued, and that’s uncomfortable enough, even when the critiques are glowing.

People who have been to longer workshops can speak to this better. What’s it like out there the 4th week of Clarion? A wee bit tense. And don’t you want to vote people off the island?

***

As I look back at Taos, I still find the signs of writer civilization. While we may have had one or two problem children from time to time, for the most part, writers seemed to learn from the experience, to bond with each other, and to treat each other with courtesy in their communications after the workshop. They genuinely miss each other, and value each others advice.

Still, I find my time in writer culture at large to be very rewarding. Most of the writers I interact with are friendly, helpful and supportive. I find that many writers are quite generous with their time and support. (I believe that this is the reason that our workshops exist–more experienced writers paying it forward.)

Writers do spend some time talking about how you don’t want to be “that guy,” and “that guy” can be many things. It’s just that you notice “that guy” more in a microcosm.

What I’m trying to say is that later, when all the dust has settled, and people have come down the mountain, you find that the writers you bonded with over two weeks are the same courteous type of writers that you involve yourself with. At least in my experience.

I have some notes from Daniel Abraham that really, really apply.

1. Write well–make beautiful things.
2. Meet your deadlines.
3. Be pleasant to work with.
4. Be flexible.
5. Be persistent.

And so it goes as we keep plugging away.

All righty then. Pursuant to this, which is pursuant to this, which was further commented on here and here.

So, look, here’s some information from the inside, okay?

I stopped costuming so I could find time to write. I hit my Masters class award in 2007, made a couple more suits, and then buckled down to doing the writing thing. I’ve made all kinds of suits as a costumer for all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of genres. And, because I’ve been costuming since I was a college student, I’ve made some skimpy suits.

Let me clarify for Joe Peacock: I made none of these suits because I wanted men to look at me or my body (because you know, all we women think about is how we can dress to get men to ogle us). When I made all these suits, I was happily in a relationship with the same guy I’ve been married to for 25 years, so I was not cruising the mighty geek circuit like it was a bar scene. And there is no one motivation for me making these suits.

Warning: We are about to take a trip in the way back machine. These are old photoshopped costume photos, mostly because that was also a geeky thing Bryon and I did. So, there’s a bit of a humorous element as well.

Here are a couple of examples of suits I’ve worn and why I did it. And you will find, I think, that the reasoning for doing so in a couple of cases makes me a fairly authentic geek.

Starfire

Why I Did It:

Not the best of motivations, another cosplay peer had done it rather poorly the year before and I wanted to do it the way I thought would make it look right. Several of my costumes have been motivated by this reason. It is one of the reasons I have become a master class costumer.

This was also my first costume working with hard plastic and extensive make-up, so I learned a lot.

Episode: Julius Schwartz decided pinching my butt was okay since I was in this costume. I was merely 21 and shocked, so I did not react with the indignation that action deserved.

Continue reading “Geeking the Cosplay”

Wow! And that’s all I gotta say about today’s work day.

With that in mind, instead of the AWESOME post I was gonna do on Cosplay, instead I’m going to give you an erudite link that Sharon (my right-hand at Kirkwood) shared with me this morning on every grammar teacher’s favorite mistake, Alot.

Amber Sistla runs a full series of interviews over at her own website, and when she was kind enough to interview me, I suggested a trade. I have been doing a little reading of Amber’s work. Most of her work is available online, and I find it insightful and perceptive particularly in the territory of character interiors. Her writing is delicate and precise. Go take a look.

***

Tamago: Do you have a regular drafting process, or does your drafting process vary from book to book? (If it varies, please keep one project in mind as you answer these questions.)

Amber: For books, I use a spreadsheet that I’ve cobbled together from bits and pieces of that I’ve liked from other writers’ processes. On one worksheet I keep track of the characters and any character information about them (e.g., how they are related to each other, what quirks/fears/ambitions they have, etc.). On another worksheet I have a numbered list with one sentence descriptions of the chapters, the POV character for the chapter, the “time” in the novel that it happens, and whether is mostly action or talking occurs in the chapter. Another worksheet keeps track of wordcount (overall, per chapter, and per day).

Then I have numbered word documents that correspond to each chapter, and I complete them each on a chapter by chapter basis, but I don’t complete them all in numerical order. When I write a chapter, I like to go straight through with as little chance for distractions as possible. If I need to research something, I use [] a lot to indicate what I need to research…later. If I need to go back to another chapter to put foreshadowing, or change hair color, or change anything, I use [] to leave notes to myself of what I need to do…later, and I simply move on with the story as if those changes had already been made.

Tamago: How do you find time to write in your schedule?

Amber: I try do it before the kids are awake or after they sleep; although, I am trying to institute a “quiet time.”

Tamago: Which part of writing–drafting, revising, critique from others–do you enjoy the most? Why? The least? Why?

Amber: I like revising best because the story is already finished and now I’m just going to make it better! But I’ve noticed critiquing other people’s works also helps me immensely; after critiquing, I’m always better able to see the flaws in my own stories.

Tamago: You write both short stories and longer fiction. Do you find that your writing process varies depending on the length of the story?

Amber: Absolutely. Flash, short story, and novelette length (depending on the length) can be first drafted in a few sittings. I never use the spreadsheet to track those lengths or summarize the sections. However, I do make use of the handy [] angled brackets.

For novellas and novels, it just takes so much longer, that I like to have the higher level summaries and other things tracked in the spreadsheet to make sure everything flows well and that I don’t forget anything.

Tamago: How do you know when something is working in your writing?

Amber: When everything seems to click together, when I realize things I wrote in the beginning foreshadow things that happen later, when I am so excited to get word after word on the page.

Tamago: What is the longest time it’s taken you to complete a project? The shortest time?

Amber: You mean besides getting this interview back to you? J The longest time was with my first novel with started life as a short story in early 2007 and grew to a novel by the end of 2008. Shortest time is a few hours for a flash which sort of burst into my head full-fledged and I typed it as quickly as I could.

Tamago: Do you work alone, or do you participate in a critique group? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages to your approach?

Amber: I participate in an online writer’s forum that has a critique area which I don’t use nearly enough. I think it’s always good to get an unbiased set of eyes to look at your work, and as I said before, I always find that I am a better self-critiquer right after I’ve just critiqued someone else.

Tamago: How many drafts of a project will you write? What do you do in each draft?

Amber: It depends on the project. The flash I mentioned above sold on the first draft. But I have a hard time giving up on stories. I have one story that sold after 22 tries to a pro-paying venue, and I’m pretty sure that story had at least 22 drafts…

First pass through a draft will be to resolves any [] that I left myself. Second pass through will be to resolve any reader comments.

Tamago: Besides the big firsts (getting an agent, publishing your first novel), what moments have you had that made you think, “hey, I’m actually a writer?”

Amber: Seeing reviews, both good and bad.

Tamago: What has been your favorite project to date?

Amber: That’s like asking me which child is my favorite J I like every project, and I don’t really give up on any of them. That’s what makes writing so much fun.

And now for something completely different.

While I was in Taos, my husband was at home. Alone. Building submarines. I am the photographer.

This is the kind of thing I live with, every day. Now you can understand the whole Lost in Space robot thing a little better. I’m personally waiting for the Taj Mahal out of cardboard. It’s beautiful by moonlight.

Anyway, enjoy a little piece of Bryon’s childhood and a big piece of his summer.

Catherine

Okay. Immediate personal crises are dealt with.

Sekhmet: does in fact have not so benign cancer. We think we got all the tumor out, but we aren’t sure. We are on lump watch. Her cancer isn’t particularly aggressive, and we anticipate that if we get regrowth at all, it’ll be slow. She’s a 12-year old cat. She should have several good years in her yet.

Water heater: I have one now. I have hot water. You don’t appreciate it as much until you don’t have it.

Work: I’m back at work. Yay.

Coming: One more Taos post, vacation post, an Interview (!), a special interview with Tiffany Trent on a new book, a review of an ARC of Quantum Coin by E.C. Myers, and why travel by air is dead to me.

***

But first, I guess it’s time to write about being a woman. And…being a geek. There’s been an interesting proliferation of strange posts from around the Internet.

And I want to talk about two of them in two very different posts, because one is more gravely serious than the other, but the other is something I know quite a bit about in my former life as Cosplay Queen.

***

Everyone has an opinion about Readercon and the two-year hiatus given to Rene Walling. My personal opinion is like most people’s: I am saddened by the lack of sensitivity to the issue, and I am outraged that the convention seems to be carrying on with business as usual, especially after a campaign season that saw serious attacks against women’s person-hoods. Sometimes it just seems like society is out to remind you that no, you haven’t come a long way, baby (courtesy of Viriginia Slims). Thanks for the right hook, Readercon.

***

Look, Readercon, let’s do this logically, because you know, it’s a new approach.

Let me talk to you as Board President of Mindbridge for a second, okay? We had to ban a person last year from one of our venues because we had logged instances of unwanted touch. Personal feelings aside (yuck!), there is a much more pragmatic concern. The liability of your organization in regard to a potential felon’s activities, especially if you are aware of that potential, and it is known you are (you must admit that the knowledge that your perp is an offender is out there, thanks to the magical and awesome power of the Internet), is a high liability. If for no other reason than your personal liability and potential sue-ability, get this guy off your books, and ban him. Honest to God, this is not a question of morality, this is a question of protecting your organization and your own legal futures. Ask yourself: Is he worth the risk to your convention, your staff, and you personally?

***

Next…don’t pull a Penn State. It is easy to pretend that you don’t see what is going on. Outrage from the fan community should prove to you that you have not taken the easier path, given that you’ve caused quite a stir and that’s a very long list of names on that petition. The Penn State example is similar to what’s happening with your convention. You are under-reacting to a serious injustice and minimizing the culpability of a serious offense. Should you walk away from this highly suspicious situation, and hang the victims out? It spoke ill of Penn State officials, and it speaks ill of you. And again, it makes you liable.

***

Finally, it is an interesting assumption that you assume Waller can straighten up and fly right on his own, that you are even involving yourself in the question of his reform. This is not your concern. Your job is to protect your event, its attendees, and its staff. That’s your raison d’etre. It’s not to help a perp reform. I doubt much you have the qualifications or the ability to make the judgment that he has. What would you require as proof? How would you test him? How would you determine he is Readercon safe? This is logical balderdash.

Simply put, you owe your attendees a good experience so they will come back. You owe everyone at your convention a safe, comfortable experience. And your duty, no more, no less, is the custodianship of Readercon. By putting yourself and the convention at potential legal risk, you are failing in that basic duty.

***

So, those are my logical reasons for why you’ve got to ban Rene Walling, Readercon. If you won’t do it because his actions are immoral and reprehensible, why not go for the self-preservation angle? Unless, of course, you think Rene Walling is worth a huge reduction in attendance, possible litigation, a destroyed reputation, and a future of uncertainty.

I have returned home.

The cruise was wonderful. I keep feeling entitled to food for free, so I do need to re-frame that experience lest I end up in the penal system.

I’d like to say that I remain entirely rested from my vacation, but we have stumbled into a series of mishaps upon our return.

Today, rather than re-entering our real life slowly, we went to the funeral of one of Bryon’s aunts who passed away in our absence. It was a good funeral and her death was not unexpected, but it was not the leisurely day we’d hoped for.

Tomorrow we take Sekhmet in to the vet’s to have her stitches removed, and over the phone, the vet intimated that her situation is potentially dangerous. But that could be like Bryon’s pre-cancerous polyps, which if removed are fine, or that could be something more. He didn’t want to talk over the phone. How I wish we hadn’t called until we’d returned home. Bryon’s mind has been here pretty much since that call.

Our water heater is spraying water, so we are currently a cold water household, and we call the local hardware store tomorrow. That’s the third water heater we’ve had in 13 years. This one went in in 2009. Something is remiss. There will be a consultation.

And Monday I resume work.

This is our adult life in the adult word doing adult things. We snatch peace where we can and we hope for no greater crises that damaged water heaters, because we do not wish to lose our pets to cancer.

More to come. Suffice to say that it was a good vacation, well worth the trip, and will remain so regardless of what the next few days bring.

Catherine

On a hot Iowa day, Bryon and I renewed our vows. We were surrounded by our family of choice after a delicious picnic potluck. It looked something like this–notice the rain. I wish I could say I planned that. 🙂

I could tell you what 25 years of marriage is like. Marriage is work, because the person you’re married to now wasn’t the person you married 25 years ago. Every time you change, he changes a little. Every time he changes, you do too. When each of you becomes a little bit more of someone else, the other of you keeps up. Good marriage is like dancing, and each of you steps just a little bit behind or ahead of the other. No one gives everything or takes everything, but sometimes you lead. Sometimes you follow. Sometimes you run a three-legged race. And sometimes you physically carry each other. But you keep up with each other, because the other person is worth it.

In 25 years, love changes. There’s still attraction and romance, but if you’ve done it right, there’s a respect for each other that has been earned over the years and is a point of mutual admiration. You aren’t embarrassed by anything about each other any more. You laugh. You are jolly friends. As well as business partners and hot lovers. You are a team. You are a couple. And you are head over heels, still.

I have been very lucky. While my marriage hasn’t been without rough patches on occasion, overall every day is better than the last. Our best days are ahead of us. No matter what our lives throw at us, we will put our heads together and use our teamwork to get to where we need to be. The way we do. With cleverness and creativity, with love for each other, and with profound respect for the choice we each made years ago, to share our lives with each other, which was not a choice made lightly, and which is a choice we made again, yesterday, when we renewed our vows.

While I am on my silver anniversary vacation, I will be away from Writer Tamago. I’ll see you when I get back, sometime the weekend of the 26th. No, really, I won’t be toting my computer along. Because this is a special time for us. I enjoy you all, but it’d be hard to explain all of you on a romantic vacation. 🙂

There will probably be some vacation pictures, so you will hardly miss me. Think exotic locales and Mickey Mouse.

Take care, and keep being creative.

Cath

The morning brings a pleasant surprise. A gentle rain that falls from about 7 until noon. It’s not likely we’ll see a miracle in terms of plant resurrection, but it’s nice to see something other than rusty grass, and the green parts have certainly perked up a bit.

This morning Bryon and I took Sekhmet in for surgery. She had a growth in her right front shoulder. Now she is resting peacefully and we’ll pick her up after she spends the night at the vet. We’ll get her sutures out when we get back from Florida. The little nodule has been sent off to the kitty pathologist to make sure that it’s not cancerous. No one is terribly concerned that it is, but that’s what you do. Anyway, our poor little kitty will need some tlc for the next couple of days.

***

So, the other day, I wrote about vision versus technique. There are a few other things about critiquing that I’ve been thinking about since Taos, and of course, these things apply to other workshops.

1. Positive, then negative, then positive. Or, as David McAmis called it, “the shit sandwich.” This is a business writing technique, where you bury the less desirable information in between more desirable information. There are a couple of schools about critiquing. Some authors prefer you to focus on what needs to be fixed only. That can make for a fairly negative review alone, so a mixed review about what works and what might work better strikes me as a good idea. The follow up, the positive at the end, might be even more important than the positive at the beginning. That way the overall effect of the critique does not become a grocery list of hard hits.

This, of course, begs, the question what do you do if the critique has few positives? As I tell the students in composition class, usually something can be commented on positively. Also, the way that you give the feedback, in a constructive way, has a lot to do with how it is perceived.

2. Length of critique time. Not that Viable Paradise is the end all/be all of workshops, but they did seem to understand that attention spans are short. At VP, groups of about 10 (8 people, 2 instructors) took a couple of hours to critique two stories. This struck me as a good move, rather than listening to 15-20 people give you all the data you can stand until your eyes glaze over (both Taos and Dallas). In Vegas, since there 8 or so of us, well, the effect was more VPish.

3. Guidelines for critique. Taos did a great thing by handing out some suggestions for critique. It might also have been useful to send those out before the workshop, but guidelines are particularly helpful for those who are new to the process.

4. Humor? Does it have a place at the table? Every workshop I’ve been at allows you to crack jokes. There’s a fear at Odyssey, I understand, that this detracts from the critiques and turns the sessions into performance. I don’t think that’s true. I think that humor can help de-escalate the stress of a critique, as long as it is good-spirited.

5. Critiques are confidential. So, you probably shouldn’t talk about them in your journal, especially if other workshoppers can figure out who’s who. (Not Taos.) You probably should only talk about your own critiques, but not with any denigration. This was stressed at Taos, but not at the other workshops I’ve been to. And it probably should be.

6. Counseling! One thing that VP does that’s FANTASTIC, that we can’t do at our small home brew critiques, but Taos might think about, is to have experienced workshoppers from previous workshops to act as counselors and cheer leaders. Because a workshop is a weird space, psychologically, and a little help can sidestep a negative experience.

***

Just some thoughts. Overall, the critiques I’ve had from the workshops I’ve been in have been helpful. I guess it’s a way to build up our callouses for the ultimate editorial letter.

Written in 2009, revamped heavily in in 2010, over one year at Tor.com, and eleven rejections later, Mark Twain’s Daughter has found a home in Paper Golem’s Cucurbital 3 collection. This is the second story Lawrence Schoen has been kind enough to buy from me in two years.

I’m just happy this one finally found a home. This publication is dedicated to Ferrett Steinmetz and Sean Craven, who were extraordinarily helpful when I pulled this one back into the garage. I couldn’t have done it without you, gentlemen.

If you’re interested in reading about the historical events that inspired the story, check out twaintimes.net