michaeljasper.net
"Another Wrecked Web Site"
May 29, 2002
What day is it???
Now Playing:
"Vs.," Pearl Jam
Today's Words:
1300...
Midnight: Well, I have a great start on my 2nd story, though it's midnight and I'm just getting started. Tonight was romance/sex night here at the workshop, so of course it ran long. At 8 we talked about the romance novels, and Kris had some great insights into the industry. She said it's the hardest genre to write for, because of the rigid rules and expectations set by the readers, but she also said it's the one genre that she truly laughs out loud while writing it. That's appealing to me -- a lot of my stuff tends to be dark, so it'd be fun to write some light stuff every now and then. mjj
And another thing appealed to me about romances, also brought up by Kris, whose insight has been immense, by the way, and a great counterpoint to Gardner's perspective and knowledge. She said that people scoff at romance because it is so formulaic, but she loves it because it's dealing with the act of falling in love, something that happens to most people only a couple times in their lives (hopefully at least once!). The rest of our lives we're In Love, but Falling in Love is an intoxicating time but and unfortunately, a short time.
All I have to do is think about how whacked out I was when I first met Lizzie, and how I wanted to be with her all the time, obsessing about her almost, and how everything was more intense, and how I felt so much more alive and more like the way I wanted to be, and that's some powerful stuff.
I think I'll try my hand at a Romance some day. I love thinking about those wild days of our youth, crazy in love and goofy as hell, every day a new experience. I've already got a pseudonym and a couple ideas for romances. And best of all, the money's really good. Later!
2:45 p.m. PST: Here we are again. I just had my first critique, finally, and everyone seemed to like "Gunning for the Buddha," for the most part. I had a lot of really excellent suggestions, and I know pretty much what to do with it. Gardner said it was the most stylishly crafted story so far, professionally written, jazzy, and strong line by line. Kris liked it a lot, especially the tone and the writing and the way in which I described the bridges and time-jumping, though she thinks I should "re-draft" it, meaning I should start it all over and write the whole works again. Shudder.
Everyone else in class enjoyed it and James had an excellent suggestion of where to end the story so it works much better, and I just may take him up on it. And everyone needed to be convinced the narrator was female! And somehow I need to ratchet up both the emotions and the setting descriptions.
Actually, if I get two things out of this workshop (and I know I've gotten much, much more out of it than that already, at the half-way point), it's that stories NEED emotion in them, a sense of connection between the characters and the plot and the reader; also, the reader needs to be able to sense the location of the story, using sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.
So much to juggle in the story! But I really want to jam on these things for my next story. I realized, thanks to Kris, that "Gunning for the Buddha" had almost NO setting description! She was fooled into thinking there was descriptions of the places, but once she got past the narrator's voice, she realized it was all white space and me, waving my hands like crazy.
I've got the makings of my next story perculating in my brain right now, and as soon as I take a nice long walk on the beach (staying off all logs!) to clear my head and get some exercise as today is the first day it hasn't been raining non-stop, I plan on getting to it. Well, actually, I probably won't start drafting it until later tonight. I have a writing exercise to do first, writing a scene about two of my sexual (yes, you read that right) encounters in the past (so many to choose from!), and then reading and commenting on four more stories. I may try to read the rest of the Jo Beverly romance novella, simply because I kind of liked its setup and I may try to do a tiny bit of romance in my story, just for the hell of it (I'm trying to fit as many genres into this one as I can!). At eight p.m. we're discussing the romances, then Gardner is reading us the world's worst sex scene ever written (yeah, I'm a little scared...).
So around 10 p.m. or so I'll get to start writing! I've got a lot to do, but it's all fun stuff. Why can't I do this fiction writing stuff all the time?
Actually, I feel myself starting to slow down. Probably from lack of sleep and the euphoria of writing and critting and meeting new folks. Kris and Gardner are definitely keeping us hopping, and I like that. I feel like there's so much I can learn from both of them, and it's been immensely rewarding. I'm really looking forward to writing more stories using these new tools we've been given.
That being said... (sorry, inside joke -- everyone seems to use that saying as a segue in their comments!) I'm still missing my lovely Lizzie. We talked last night for a good 45 minutes, and it was great hearing her voice and being reminded that she's there and thinking of me, and I have a wonderful home to return to. I think this upcoming writing assignment is gonna really make me miss her, as I plumb the depths of my emotions and recreate my interactions with her. She's wonderful for encouraging me to come here. I owe her so much.
Okay, I gotta go before I get all choked up! Later!
May 28, 2002
One done, so many to go...
Now Playing:
Pearl Jam, live on my laptop
Today's Words:
400
Today's Quote:
All travel to Lucretia was banned. Another experiment in group thought-control gone wrong, another lesson learned as far as the Governmental Enclave was concerned. A report was filed recommending that the Book of All People be thrown out as a religious guidebook. Apparently, submission through shared religion was not the most efficient manner. But there were always other worlds. As the exploratory ships became more efficient, terraformable planets and moons were becoming easier to find. Lesson learned, the report concluded; someone close the Book on Lucretia.
9:10 a.m. PST: Story one is done, and I'm really not sure what to make of it. Like another story I wrote really really fast, I really don't think it makes much sense, but I have even less confidence in this one than I do "Natural Order." It sort of gets a bit whacked out by the end. mjj
Kris said that if we don't have the story done by 10 a.m. today, we just have to write "And the sun went nova." Well, I finished the story, but the ending sort've turned out to look like the sun went nova (pretty much everyone on the planet is wiped out). Sigh.
This one could be a chalk-it-up-to-learning story. It's called "Dispensed with Extreme Rapture," and it takes place on a world in the process of being terraformed, and deals with religion and group thought control. It was a stretch for me, and I took a lot of chances at the sentence level, stretching my style. Should be interesting to see what the reaction is.
I'm already getting pumped up about what story to write next. I have two possibilities, both based on older ideas that I never got started -- one is the Space Mercs, and the other is a story set on Subaridon, telling the story of one of the Killaster witches. But we may get another assignment in class for our next story, so I'm going to keep my options open. It's nice to think that I can jam out a story in a day or so, and "Dispensed" was a good-sized tale, about 4,400 words. Even if it doesn't make a whole lotta sense at the end...!
As I started writing about yesterday, but got too tired to think straight, much less write in here, I've been trying to wrap my arms around how to best rewrite. Dean is convinced you shouldn't rewrite at all, unless asked to by an editor. I have trouble with that, but I'm gonna try it more. His philosophy, if I understand him correctly, is that people don't trust their own voice enough, and by going back over a story once it's done many times makes it worse. It's an interesting philosophy, and one I'm using with my first story, which I didn't mess with much at all, compared to most of my stories.
I didn't get a chance to call Elizabeth yesterday, and I missed that. If I'm by myself too much and I'm not slam-busy, I get a little sad, thinking about her back home with me not next to her. We've had a crazy year, and I don't like being apart from her right now. I guess I'm feeling a little vulnerable right now, with all that's going on in my life and our lives together. I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice to say that with Elizabeth being in school and me working harder than ever on my fiction, it's hard to know when to stop working. We both have forgotten how to have fun! But we're learning again, and this week is good for me in that it's showing me what's truly important, and that's my relationship with my wife. I can't wait to see her again! Later.
May 27, 2002
A draft is done. Sort of...
Now Playing:
"Riviera," Big Head Todd & The Monsters
Today's Words:
3,500
11 p.m. PST: Well, I wrote most of a story today, finishing a draft right around 6 p.m. or so. It pretty much falls apart at the end, doing some crazy stuff way out of left field, and I need to fix it up tomorrow before I hand it in at 10 a.m., but it's a 4,000-word draft I pretty much wrote in a day. Most of it was written this morning, again proving I'm a morning writer, and I like that stuff better than what I slapped together this afternoon, half-asleep and pushing hard to get done. mjj
Dean has a theory about rewriting that I'm trying to figure out. Basically he says not to do it. Trust yourself to get the story right, instinctively. I dunno -- that's a tough one for me. I feel like this story just sort of loses it at the end, as the bombs start dropping (I'm hoping no one thinks this is a "And then the sun went nova" ending!).
Part of me is tempted to just hand it in tomorrow as it is, just to see what folks say. But then I don't want to subject people, including Gardner and Kris, to a bad draft. At the same time, I'm starting to think about starting my next story, so... We'll see how I feel tomorrow a.m. I think I need to shut the computer off for a while. I still have 4 crits to do as well. Never a dull moment here! Later.
Today's Quote:
Dharby was convinced he'd accumulated and witnessed all the signs he needed to begin the first stage of Extreme Rapture. One of the convenient aspects about being an interpreter of a work like the Book of All People was that pretty much anything that had been written could be stretched to fit his interpretation.
May 26, 2002
Here I am! And I must get going...
Now Playing:
"Memphis, TN," Pearl Jam; "Elemental," Tears for Fears
Today's Words:
1660 (on 4 different stories!)
8:15 a.m PST: So we arrived in Lincoln City around 5 p.m. last night, grabbed a bite at Subway (well, one of us grabbed some drinks at Subway, and the rest of us had sandwiches!), and made it to the workshop house around 6 p.m. Kris was there to greet us, as was Gardner and Dean and some of the other writers. We hung out, chatted a bit, got to know each other, looked at all the stuff Dean collects(!) and then we had our first official meeting. mjj
Very cool stuff. Kris and Gardner encouraged us all to push ourselves, to write stories that were our stories, not what we thought we should be writing, or other people's stories. What's gonna make our stuff work is the special blend we can give it as unique people. And we're not pushing ourselves far enough, not taking enough risks, at least from what Gardner saw in the 12 submission stories.
Of course, he said there were only 3 he read all the way through, and I'm assuming my "Gunning for the Buddha" was one of them...
This is exactly what I need. I'm so glad they're taking this approach. We have a lot to do, but it's not overwhelming. Today we have class at 10 a.m., discussing 2 of the submission stories, and we're also handing in an assignment (a page of a story that has NO punctuation anywhere in it!). I'm also looking for a printer to print off my three other stories. I think we're going to critique those, or at least have everyone read them, for an awesome assignment -- from the three stories each of us brought, pick out 80,000 words worth of stories for an anthology I'll be editing. How fun! And a great chance to really see how editors work. Of course we can't pick our own stories. Ah well. But it'll be great. I can't wait.
And we have a story due first thing Tuesday morning. The assignment is to write about a protagonist who's completely different from me, but make them sympathetic. Cool idea. I have about four good possible ideas for this. Two are from ideas I had previously -- the space mercs and the John Darby/Revelation idea -- and one is from an idea I've been playing with ever since reading "Catharine Wheel" by Ian McDonald, and the last (and hardest) is for a brand-new idea set on a terraforming-in-process world that has lots of hard SF stuff in it (I wanted to write a terraforming story that I would WANT to read!).
As far as first sentences, here's what I have so far:
A good mix of ideas, so far, I think. Right now I'm sort of leaning toward the last one, just because that's the idea I've been playing with the last few days. More on them later. Gotta write now!!!
May 25, 2002
On my way...
Now Reading:
Worldmakers: SF Adventures in Terraforming (my last Now Reading entry for a while!)
Today's Words:
none yet...
8:30 a.m. CST: So I'm in a layover in Chicago's O'Hare. Gotta get used to using this laptop again -- Elizabeth's taken it over for her school work. I miss her already. Man. I don't wanna think about it -- a week and a day away from her. I think that's the longest we've been apart since we got married, and the longest ever since Clarion.
mjj
Wow. Clarion. I sort've have that feeling coming into this workshop, but look at how far I've come in the past 6 years. I've done a lot. Oh what the hell, indulge me. Let's take a look at what I've done:
(9:30 am CST: I'm on the plane now, just flew over Sioux City, the clouds clearing so I can see the squares of brown, tan, and green land outlined by ruler-straight roads -- did I used to live 'round here? I'm hoping I can see some of Mount Rushmore, Crazyhorse, and Yellowstone -- we pass over that as well. Now where was I? Oh yeah, my achievements since Clarion).
I've written two solo novels and about half of a third, and collaborated on another novel. I've written over three dozen stories, about a third of which were mainstream and almost all of which have been published. And in the last two years or so I've been writing stories like a madman, and publishing almost every one. And I can see myself getting better with each story. And it's taking less time to get stuff published. Not bad for a guy who had sworn off spec fic in the months after Clarion '96!
So now there's this new workshop. I want to expand. I feel like my stuff is good, but minor. This point was really hammered home for me when I read my story "Natural Order" in my contributor's copy of Asimov's. First of all, it felt really short, and also a bit thin. Now remember, I just finished reading a ton of hard SF, the really scientific stuff (well, okay, I skimmed a major portion of it!) so anyting will look thin in comparison.
But still. I'm curious to read reviews of "Natural" to see how it holds up with the other stories. There were a couple places where I cringed as I was reading my story. I guess that's natural, right? Just gotta learn from that and continue. Lots of people like that story, including me. Now I just need to take it a couple steps further, and write something even better.
And probably something that holds up better under scrutiny. I'll be curious to hear what Gardner has to say about my most recent submission to him, "Gunning for the Buddha." He bounced it last week, which sort of stung, but I'm a realist and don't expect the guy to buy all my stories (he's too busy buying Robert Reed's!! Someone needs to tell Reed to stop writing so much short fiction and give the rest of us a chance!!). I really like "Buddha," and enjoyed the time-travel aspects of it a lot, but it's a lot like "Natural" in a lot of ways. So I'm curious to get his take on it. Once I do, I'm fixing it up and sending it somewhere else!
As soon as I'm done with this entry I plan on looking over some printouts of the stories I've brought along for possible workshopping (we were supposed to bring 3 stories -- one we think is our best, one we're not sure about, and a third one that's sort of a wild card). I brought five or six -- "Gunning" (so I can chat with Gardner about it), "The Disillusionist" (my current fave), "Redemption, Drawing Near" (one I really like but not sure if it works as a story), "Black Angels" (one of my best stories, and not sure it needs workshopping), and "An Outrider's Tale" (this one is probably gonna be my third, wild-card story). I don't know if we're going to workshop these stories, along with our submission story; that would be 4 stories from each writer, times 11 other writers, 44 to read in a week, plus whatever stories we write while we're there... Hmmm... Maybe just the teachers are gonna read 'em, I dunno. I guess I'll find out soon enough.
I'm starting to get really pumped up about this. Now that I've made all my connections, and I'm fully awake (I overslept 20 minutes this morning and didn't get a chance to shower!), I can really start to think about a full week of writing, reading, and discussing. I skimmed most of the stories in the last antho about terraforming, but I couldn't really concentrate on any of them. Too much infodumpage.
So I'm going to take a look at my stuff now, and see if I can't come up with more ideas for stories. I've got a couple, including one that came to me while reading Ian McDonald's "Catharine Wheel." My story may take place on my created world of Subaridon. Maybe. Something tells me I'll come up with something to write about that's totally new this week. Looking forward to it, and I'm looking forward to lunch with Jay and meeting up with James, Tonya, and Phaedra, and driving on to Lincoln City. I'll give you the details later!