michaeljasper.net "Another Wrecked Web Site"
September 30, 2000 The last entry of this type, at least for the next three months (see my Dare News for more info). Mike's Con Report	I'm not sure how I feel about science fiction conventions, now that I've been to one. It's strange. I guess this one (Trinoc*coN) isn't the best con to base my opinions on, as it's in its first year and there was a limited amount of programming and guests. What programming I saw and participated in was pretty top-notch, if I say so myself. I guess I just don't get into the hobnobbing aspect of it. I've never been a very social person when it comes to meeting new folks and making small talk. Even though there were tons of other writers there, interested in much the same kind of subjects as me, I felt awkward and a bit goofy. What do you say to an author whose novel you just thought was awesome. "Hey there, I liked your book. It was, um, cool." Not my style. And I found it hard to talk with the pro writers there that I knew. Maybe there's some unspoken etiquette that I haven't learned yet. But I felt much more comfortable with the folks at the Writers of the Future week, though I didn't talk to any of the older authors there like Jerry Pournelle or Larry Niven (I did chat a bit with Gregory Benford at breakfast one day, and he was cool) or the "old school" guys. I enjoyed chatting with younger guys like Kevin J. Anderson and Dean Wesley Smith. And just talking with my fellow writers was fun. But at this con, I felt really out of place. Maybe because I haven't been reading SF all my life, maybe I just felt like a dabbler or a poser, I dunno. So I'm not sure if I'll be doing lots of cons in the future. I'll definitely go with someone else, instead of flying solo like I did here (it was quite nice coming home afterwards to my wife and dog and cat instead of some hotel room). Maybe I'll try a big con like World SF or World Fantasy (or whatever they're called). With the exception of the "Meet the Guests" party (which I left early, for reasons stated above!), I enjoyed the programs I was a part of. The e-zine panel I was on was informative, talking about the death of the magazine (again) and how basically people will pay tons of cash for online porn, but refuse to pay for online stories and quality websites. And how most of the sites out there are crap. Hopefully Strange Horizons will be able to continue on and keep improving. I hate that I had to bail out on them, but I was at wit's end, trying to do everything, so that had to get cut. I did get to meet Chip Sudderth, one of SH's copy editors, and he was cool (and I got to pay him the $15 I owed him!). I also sat in on a fun reading by James Cambias, who read his story from F&SF, "Alien Abduction." I liked the story when I read it there, and liked it even more when he read it to me - just me! - in the empty room (luckily 2 other folks joined us, so it wasn't just us 2). It's a funny story with a great hook at the end as the abducted alien gets the last word. Then we went to get some barbecue at a Durham restaurant and I sat next to John Kessel, Michael Swanwick, Paul DiFillipo, Paul's wife and other writers and con organizers. Interesting discussions, as they discussed how some good writers they'd once known started writing Star Trek novels and then disappeared from their radar&ldots; I kept my mouth shut and listened. Then they got on a discussion about some obscure SF writers and I zoned out. Saturday was more fun, as I helped lead the writing workshop from 1-3 with four other writers: Bud Webster, Allen Wold, William Barton, and Jodie Forrest. That was really intense, as we had the 14 writers in the class write a 100-word hook, then we had to totally focus as the writers read their hook out loud and we'd critique it. Great fun. Allen is an excellent teacher, and his enthusiasm is contagious. I enjoyed having to come up with something poignant to say for each hook, and it was fun finding things to disagree with the pros about. After that I was off to my big hour of signing. I signed two whole books! Whew. One for Lynne, a former co-worker, and one for Ron, one of the con organizers who was in charge of the dealers' room. Wow. At least I got to chat with Graham Watkins, another area writer, about the Internet and horror markets. The frustrating part was trying to find a copy of one of his books so I could have him sign it - non of the dealers had one! How idiotic is that? Maybe next year folks will have their acts together in the dealers room. After that, I goofed around a little bit and ran into my sister and mom, who were there for the reading. So I was assured I wouldn't be reading to an empty room, which was a relief. It was great having Shelly and Mom there (even if Shelly was weirded out a bit by the strange SF fans wandering around) and then Elizabeth and Clarke showed up, doubling my audience! My reading went well, and I enjoyed reading. I like doing them. I just hope they aren't too boring. It's hard as crap for me to follow a reading, so I appreciated everyone coming. Then I bailed on the con and went out to dinner with some friends we haven't seen in months. I think they were able to get by without me. Maybe next year I'll be more comfortable. It'd be nice if I had a nice novel to sign at that point. It's in October 2001, so I've got a year to get my writing act together. It all starts tomorrow, as I begin the Writing Dare. See you there! mjj
---------- September 29, 2000 Meeting someone new...	Didn't have a whole lot of time to write this morning, but I did manage to add the edits to "Natural Order" before I was off to the hospital to meet my newest nephew! Yes - Elizabeth's sister Angela had her first baby this morning around 4 a.m.: Parker Austin Bowman. He's a cutie. Almost nine pounds too! It sounds like there was a little chaos with the birth at first, when Parker's heartrate dipped, but he came out fine, just a day or two late. Sort of puts things in perspective, eh? I'm sure if and when Elizabeth and I decide to have kids, my current stresses will go away, only to be replaced by a whole new group of stresses... Maybe someday. Got my laptop for $450. There was a mad rush of bidding in the last 15 minutes of the auction, and I was seriously getting worried the price would go over $500 or worse. But I get to pick it up at lunch, and I'm sure my productivity will dip as I configure my new toy. And finally, tonight is the first day of the Trinoc*coN in Durham. I'm on a panel at 5 p.m., right off the bat. I also wrote an article about the con - check it out in today's What's Up (though I'm not sure how long that link will remain). mjj
---------- September 28, 2000 Finished it! Sending it out today! Whew...	Okay, so I've worked my butt off on this story, and I printed it out today at 6:30 a.m. after a final run-through this morning, and I think it works well. I cut out a couple characters and focus on just the main three folks and their dilemma. I really like how it ends, and I think it's tight enough to do well in the contest. I can only hope. If you're wondering why I'm so tight-lipped about the story, I just didn't want to say anything about it while I was writing it and jinx myself. The story was something new for me -- it was a "Star Trek" story, stemming from a conversation Elizabeth and I had had with Dean Wesley Smith at WotF 2 weeks ago. He was talking about this anthology he edits, Strange New Worlds, and he said how many stories he gets for it each year (over 5,000 I think he said) and how he's glad that's all he edits these days. He used to run Pulphouse, a cool horror monthly/quarterly mag, while his wife, Kristine Rusch, edited Fantasy and Science Fiction. The postal workers in his Oregon town just loved him, I'm sure. Well to make a long story short, I said that with those odds I was better off buying a lottery ticket, but Dean quickly corrected me - I could control the odds if I wrote a damn good story that had him hooked. So, with less than 2 weeks before the deadline of Oct. 1, I set out to do just that. It's about Scotty and the whales from "Star Trek IV." I guess there was a story about the whales in a previous anthology, but it was too late to turn back by the time I'd learned about that. I wanted to do this to see if I could do something (1) fast, and (2) "for-hire." I think I can do it. It was cool doing research, because half of the research was reading about whales, while the other half was watching "Star Trek" films. Not bad. More fun than writing about software! In other news, I'm getting ready for the con tomorrow. I still haven't gotten my books from Bridge(!) but they have 2 more days to get here. I think I'll read my revised copy of "Natural Order." It should be fun. I look forward to seeing Jim Kelly again, and seeing how Kessel is doing, and meeting Michael Swanwick and James Morrow. It'd be nice to talk to Andy Duncan as well. I'd also like to talk to the folks who write the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms and Vampire books and see how they like that and how that whole process works. I'm looking forward to just going in, having fun, and learning a lot. Finally, I'm bidding on a laptop here at work (we're an auction company, and we're getting rid of about 50 used laptops). The one I'd love to get is 500 MHz, with 128MB RAM, a 6 GB hard drive, and more power than my desktop at home. And get this, the bidding right now stands at $270! Wow. The auction ends today at 3, and the laptops get handed out tomorrow. Pretty sweet, eh? mjj
---------- September 27, 2000 Revising that durn story now...	No word count for today, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing. Doing the hard stuff - revising. Ouch! I enjoy this process, but it definitely helps having some kind of plan going into it. I had my comments from my fellow writers to help me (thanks Ilsa and Leslie - you're life savers!), so I plowed through my rewrite. Now I just need to go over it once or twice to make sure everything fits together. It's fun, but time-consuming, which can be frustrating. I simply have no time this week, and it's due at the PO on Friday at the latest. But I'm getting closer. I'm also starting to really look forward to the convention on Friday and Saturday. I'm not going Sunday, which is probably good, 'cause I don't want to burn myself out (I'm there almost all day Saturday). Should be fun - I have a booksigning and a reading on Saturday. Be there, if you can! mjj
---------- September 26, 2000 1,000 words Finished a very rough draft of my new story. We'll see how it flies...	Got up early today to do some writing, and after a half-hour of goofing on the net (I really have to stop that!) I was able to finish the draft of my story. I sort of like it. I'm starting to get some responses back now. One of my WotF fellow writers had some great comments on it. They were so good I'm not sure if I can fix the story in time to get it out... But we'll see. mjj
---------- September 24, 2000 600 words	I'm still working fairly hard, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Luckily, the stuff I'm working on now, and hopefully for now on, is for myself and not anyone else. I enjoyed doing the article for the paper and the newsletter for "Strange Horizons," but it just ate into my time too much. When I've already got a limited amount of time to start with, cutting out that extra stuff makes a huge differences. Hopefully others will understand that. Plus I want to be able to leave my writing behind when I've done my daily dose of it and enjoy the rest of my life without worrying about deadlines or tasks I've yet to do. I'm one of those people who can't relax untill all of my work is done. So yeah, I don't relax much. I'm close to finishing the draft of a new story. I don't want to talk about it too much yet, not until I'm done and it's in the mail. I'll explain more later. Suffice to say, it's been a new, fun challenge for me. Got a lot of photos to add to my Writers of the Future pages, so I'll talk more later. mjj
---------- September 23, 2000 3,500 words Whoa. I just hit 100,000 words for the year. Holy wordcount, Batman!	Caffeine, coffee shops, and laptops -- what a combo! I started work on the story I've been outlining and thinking about all week. I took my car into the shop, again, though I had a better experience than last time. Had to get the brakes fixed. Brakes that work are good. So I packed up my old laptop, which got a good workout last week in LA, and proceeded to write most of the story while sipping on two big mugs of industrial strength joe at Caribou Coffee (a much cooler place than crappy Starbucks). I got there about 8 a.m., and when I looked at the time next it was about 11. I had to ask the person at the counter for the time, just to make sure I wasn't still on California time (shudder). I'd just lost 3 hours. Very cool. And I had close to 14 pages of story. I've got 2-3 scenes to flesh out, then I need to run it through an edit to make sure it makes sense, then I want to send it to some of my writing pals to get their take on it. I really like what I've got so far, and I think the ending will rock. Now to scan some photos... mjj
---------- September 22, 2000 Working on my convention story for the Raleigh News and Observer after a very good night's sleep - my first one since LA. Though it was only 6 and a half hours, it beats 3-4 hours&ldots; Total Words so far in 2000, as of today: 96,500	Got up at 5 a.m. and jammed on my article for an hour and 45 minutes, until Whit was begging me to take him for a walk. We ran around the block and he was much happier. I still have about half an hour of editing before I send it off to my editor. Good thing it's been a little slow here at work (I'm writing this at work, which is a bad, bad idea, I know). This week has been totally crazy. I don't want to go through this again. I feel like I'm finally coming down from the adrenaline rush of last week. I'm sure Elizabeth will be happy to get the "old Mike" back. I just got sort of Kevin J. Anderson-ish for a while there (inside joke - Kevin writes like 10 novels a year, and even writes books while he's rock climbing, with the help of a tape recorder. Great guy though, very driven and interesting to talk to.). I just had to find my new rhythm. And that new rhythm is a story a week, for the next 3 months. I've got my new story to draft this weekend, then the real writing begins. I've got 15-16 ideas, and I know I can do it. As long as I get 10 hours or so a week, I should be able to (that's how long it took me to write "Natural Order," the story I wrote in LA). Most of my fellow writers from last week are doing it too. Plus I'm doing a Dare with some Clarion grads, so others can follow my progress. My goal is at least 3-5 more pro sales before the year is up. Of course, editorial response time can slow me down there&ldots; So if I get up at 5 a.m., work 'til 6:30 Monday through Friday (7.5 hours) and write at least one weekend morning from 8-11 a.m. or so, I'll get my hours in. The really cool thing is that I'm excited about this. Sometimes I dread writing, but now, after last week, I can't wait to get down to it. I want this feeling to continue. But not at the expense of enjoying the rest of my life. The key word is compartmentalization. I want to do my writing in the morning, then leave it until the next morning. I can read, but not my stuff, during the rest of the day (okay, I may do line edits on my lunch break, but that's IT!). I want to enjoy my life and not have another hectic week like this past one. Of course, next week will be a bit nuts because of the con I'm a guest at, but after THAT I should be back on track. I hope so. I'm getting too old to push myself like that. It's not good for a person, emotionally and physically. And socially. My wife will kick my butt if I keep this behavior up! That's why I love her. Just finished revising my article and sent it off to my editor over my lunch break. Whew! Now to edit and revise "Natural Order" before I leave today. P.S. watch for some changes to the main page and a new journal page, coming soon. Also, I should have WotF and Hollywood photos up in the next week or so. mjj
---------- September 21, 2000 Finished a hard revision of "Working the Game," cutting exactly 10% to make it 6300 words. I like it. Hope the ending works. Also wrote 150 words on a new story and outline (more on that later).	I'm too busy to write much fiction tonight, but just thought I'd give a quick update for those enquiring minds who just have to know. I have an article to write for the local paper - it's due tomorrow! - but instead I've gotten caught up by stories. Stories everywhere. Here's the deal. This is too awesome. Almost all of my fellow writers from last week have banded together to individually write one story a week or one novel chapter a week. I formed a group for us on eGroups so we can easily communicate and store our stories (sorry, only members get to read it, and membership is restricted!). I'm also going to do my story collection as a Clarion Dare, simply because I've always wanted to do it and it will be pretty simple - I already keep a semi-regular journal, so this will be a piece of cake. All I have to do is log my daily word count and write a journal about my writing. Some of the other writers in the WotF group were very uninterested in doing this, I think just for privacy's sake, which is cool. I just wanted to do a Dare - about 6 others are doing that. So I've got a pretty good support system going on here! And I even heard from Rosie Smith, from Clarion '96! I'm on their listserv as well. I haven't talked to those folks in years - literally since I left Lansing, MI. So I revised "Working" during breaks at work, then read Toby's new story "Tides" last night instead of doing my newspaper article. Good story. I'm sending him "Working" along with a brief crit of his story. I couldn't find too much wrong with it. Elizabeth just got home from her first test - she aced it! Talk to you later. mjj
---------- September 19, 2000 Three stories are flipping through my brain, waiting for me...	I'm having a hard time staying focused on work lately. After last week, how can it not be a major letdown? I'm really hoping I can finish up the revisions to "Working the Game" and "Natural Order" in the next 2 weeks, before the con next Friday, really. I'm waiting to get some feedback from some key readers - my friend Chris for the first, and hopefully Tim Powers for the second. And, to keep myself entertained, I've started a new project that I'll have to finish by next Saturday. And I have a What's Up cover story due this week. And I'm going to start a Novel Dare October first (though I'm actually doing 12 stories instead of a novel). I really am nuts. But I'm having lots of fun. I'm also trying to get in touch with the other Writers of the Future folks, and I'm trying to just get caught up around the house from being gone all week. And still have time for Lizzie, not to mention the dog and the cat (the pets have been going through withdrawal, I think!). Yet I don't want to slow down and lose this incredible buzz I've had since LA. Can you blame me?
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