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7-25-01
NEWSFLASH!
Here at last is my corrected and hopefully final MillPhil Worldcon Program Schedule:
THURSDAY:
FRIDAY:
SATURDAY:
SUNDAY:
7-23-01
NEWSFLASH!
The weekend was spent scrubbing the bathroom and updating my official website. Now they both look pretty spiffy. :-) Check it out -- not the bathroom of course, but my domain: www.veranazarian.com!
Oh, and Veraworld my newsletter is about to hit your mailboxes. This is in many ways a double issue, and packed with all kinds of goodies.... Be on the lookout for it! :-)
Congratulations to a whole bunch of NAWers including James Hartley, Ron Collins, and Toby Buckell who have made sales to Land/Space, the prairie-themed anthology! Forgive me if I've forgotten anyone else, but like I said, a whole bunch of NAWers in the same antho! Now I will definitely have to get it!
Also, what does it make you think of? The fact that the NAW consists of the writers who are the future staple of the industry, the young generation of upcoming and newly arrived writers who inherit the industry when the older generation passes away.
Take a look at magazines and anthologies around you, the stuff coming out -- notice how often these familiar names show up? Very often, and more and more so.
In many ways this is a very momumental thing happening here. We are it, folks! In about 10 years, see where we will be -- all frigging over the place is what I say, winning all kinds of awards, writing tons of short pieces and selling novels, and making a solid chunk for ourselves.
The new Brat Pack. And we shape the future of genre and in some ways of the entire body of literature. Wow! :-)
7-19-01
NEWSFLASH!
Just as you thought we were done, another huge welcome to our latest new NAW member, Trey Thoelcke, writing as John Trey! Take a look at his journal, everyone! :-)
Awesome congratulations to Ron Collins for winning Compuserve's HOMer Award for 2000 with his novelette "The Taranth Stone!"
I am not going to post my Worldcon Program Schedule yet, since there is a conflict I noticed in my Friday morning schedule, and I would like to get it straightened out before I make it official.
Meanwhile, in the good news department, I got my first royalty check from editor Lou Anders for my classic old story "A Thing Of Love" in the Bookface.com anthology OUTSIDE THE BOX. Yayayay! :-) The check is small but it is definitely a good thing and a nice surprise, coming at this time! :-) Incidentally, this anthology has been recently reviewed in Tangent Online.
And now... in the really good news department, and talking about reviews -- I cannot divulge the full details yet, but a name writer whose own work I admire immensely, who puts me in awe, and who happens to write a regular review column in one of the major genre magazines, has given my upcoming collage novel DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE a wonderful incredible review.
The review was so perfect that it floored me, and yes, I am still reeling with happiness. Where and when this review will appear, I will announce here eventually.... *huge happy grin*
Needless to say, this made my day, my week, my month, my year!
Before I forget, please check the new NAWticisms just up....
7-17-01
NEWSFLASH!
First of all, yes, we do this kind of thing once in a blue moon, but -- a huge and warm'n'fuzzy NAW welcome to new Not-A-Webring members, Mike Jasper and Tim Pratt! Great to have you in the gang, fellas! :-) Everyone, please go check out their fabulous journals if you already haven't done so! :-) Looks like they've both been singing a lot lately (see their entries). Coincidence? I think not! ;-)
Last night I got my Millennium Philcon Worldcon Program Schedule, and looks like I got some excellent spots -- if I remember correctly, three panels, a reading (WOOHOO, I LOVE readings!) and an autograph session. And, one of the panels I get to share with our very own Toby! :-) I'll post the schedule as soon as I remember to look at it again when I get home....
I am happy to say that Diana promised to give a read to my current draft of LORDS OF RAINBOW. She will be the last reader to look at it before it goes back under the Last Edit Knife, so that I can finally turn it to my editor at Wildside Press later this year. At this rate, it looks like LORDS OR RAINBOW is gonna be released some time in the middle of 2002. Actually I am glad -- at first I was stressing but now I know that the longer I wait, the better the POD situation is getting, and the better deal the books will get in the long run. :-) Weird how bad things in life can turn around on their nether side to reveal some long-term good!
And talking about some odd little good coming out of bad -- I watched THE MISTS OF AVALON miniseries on TNT, based on the wonderful classic book of the same name by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Maybe it is just me, but I bawled repeatedly, watching this and thinking that Marion never got to see it in her lifetime.
The movie was well done -- not perfect, but with enough of MZB's soul and feeling carried over that it was touching. And the Loreena McKennitt theme song was the peculiarly good thing I mentioned first. The miniseries was delayed for years and years (the bad part). But if this miniseries had been made any earlier, before Loreena came out with the CD "The Mask And The Mirror" that contains the song "The Mystic's Dream," this would not have been the theme song they used....
So, good came out of it.
If you get a chance, read the book and do see the movie. The spirit of faerie is strong, and you too will want to part the mists and see the other side where lies Avalon....
7-14-01
NEWSFLASH!
Happy birthday to Linda J. Dunn! :-) It's your day, Linda (ok, so it's also Bastille Day in some places, but hey, France can share), and may it be the kind of day that you would most like it to be!
Lisa Silverthorne has started another Novel Dare this month, and after a slightly rocky start (life circumstances can be a real bitch), she is off to a good pace! I especially like the fact that this Dare is rather different than the others she's done before, in the sense that Lisa is exploring new writing territory, and has gone beyond the narrow confines of genre into the freedom of intensely personal expression, and a place I would call meta-mainstream (above and beyond the mundane mainstream that we all know, and that tends to be just as limited as genre, in some way). Go, Lisa, Go! :-) Check out her daily progress on her Novel Dare Page.
I just happened to see Toby Buckell's entry today where by accident he lost a computer file with 2200 very intense words of a new story he just started -- a story that he feels is groundbreaking for him. Toby, this is one of those "little" tragedies thart only fellow writers can understand. I hope with all my heart your recovery tools work to recover the missing file! And if not, try to re-create it! Don't waste time, but start writing it, NOW, while your memory is still fresh.
I have done a very similar thing earlier this year when I lost a huge chunk of some excellent edits of an old story "Goddessday" that has become a story-chapter of my upcoming collage novel DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE. The way I lost it was, I normally do mirror backup of writing in progress from drive to drive (C to D, not just logical drives but actual physical drives I have installed in my system just for such a backup). Anyway, I copied in the "wrong direction" -- an old verson of the file overwrote the new one.
When I realized what I have done, I screamed and had actual weeping hysterics. Those were some of the best words I have written to date, those were my children, and they were gone in a single split second. However, I did not think of recovery tools. Indeed, I did not risk time and memory loss, and instead, after composing myself, I sat down and recreated the lost edits (about 1,500 words, a whole afternoon's work) nearly word for word, even though it took me the rest of the day and night.
Best of luck, Toby!
By the way, talking about breaking new ground with your writing, taking it to the next level, a "breakout level" -- I strongly recommend the following book by high-powered literary agent Donald Maass, called WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL. This book is for the working midlister and serious beginner, and I found it extremely useful. Highly recommended, folks.
7-13-01
NEWSFLASH!
Lovely Friday the 13th.
Some say it is unlucky, and some say it is extremely lucky for them....
I say it's just a particularly exciting day, a day of happenings and events spiralling outward with a manic energy, and it can go either way, good or bad -- just like energy tends to be unflavored until it comes into contact with something that gives it final direction.
Anyway, so far Friday the 13th has been pretty giddy and silly, and the day is still young.
The NAW has been in a tizzy of discourse all of last night. And nope, I am not gonna get into it here. Suffice it to say that it is all healthy good community building stuff. You know, writers going at each other's cyber-throats with crass wit and non-encrypted cunning (take that, Echelon!)
Oh, and before I forget -- YOOHOO! Mr. Neil Gaiman? Calling Neil Gaiman. American Gods. Sandman. Sandboy? Raving Reviews? UK book tour journal? Indian Food? :-)
Hmm, lessee what other keywords I can stick here to make you find this entry when you websurf tonight?
Anyway, please check your e-mail! I repeat, check... your... e-mail! Please reply -- the favor of your reply is requested or there will be another e-mail! *evil grin*
7-12-01
NEWSFLASH!
You may have noticed some re-organization with the NAW front page. Yes, I am shaking out the dust bunnies and poking and prodding those of the NAW journallers who have not been updating their journals for a loooooong time. Tamela Viglione e-mailed to let me know that she is okay, even doing very well, so well in fact that she is just too busy to do the journal now, so please put her on hiatus -- which I did. Terry Kanago asked to be dropped from the group since she is extremely busy too -- which I did regretfully, and with the assurance that if she were to return to journalling she would be reinstated immediately. Douglass Shumaker whose real name is Nels P. Highberg, had stopped journalling a while ago, and I just didn't know how to handle his link, and had left it sitting there for a long time, just because Nels is a neat guy and his journal was fascinating. I e-mailed Nels to tell him that if he were to return to it I would immediately add him back in too.
Talking about the NAW -- I really found Jenn Reese's last two somewhat brooding entries extremely thoughtful and fascinating -- Ho-Hum and Monumentally Grumpy. The gist is, Jenn talks about how a writer's depression is perpertuated by an even more particular insecurity if one is producing relatively little written material, and if one thinks one's writing is rather average (which most of us do, Jenn!). Even normal envy which happens when reading Locus is replaced with bitter hopelessness based on the sense that since one is not writing anything anyway, so what's there to be jealous about. This is where things start looking particularly grim.
Let me say that I've been there, folks. I've never been a particularly prolific writer, and only recently (read, last 2 years) have I picked up some ability to do regular word mileage. For many years before that, I would crank out about the equivalent of 1-2 stories a year, maybe three at most. About 20,000 words a year. And I would have maybe 1 or 2 stories out there in circulation (languishing in various editorial slush piles). Those were truly dark years for me. I would sell a story to MZB about every other year, and meanwhile I would brood and still feel envy, but mostly that of production. I envied people who could crank out so many words, who had dozens of stories out there, and yes those who made regular sales to various markets every year.
And then something happened. I slowly made myself crazy to the point of forcing myself to work more. And it was very tough to do, this gradual picking up of the pace.
I have always been one of those writers who takes a long time to come up with a story idea, and a long time to nurture it. Maybe it's good in some ways -- I would often shoot down story ideas that other people recklessly pursued because I would think them too trivial, too dumb, too simpleton, too contrived -- basically not viable enough in some way.
You see, one of the things driving me back then was the idea that if I had a story to write, it better be based on a premise so gripping, so complex, with characters so phenomenally multi-layered, that it would be a work of automatic genius. Hah! What a sure way to cripple yourself creatively. This was also a sure way of sticking extra baggage of sharp pins into the pin cushion of your sensitive ego when it came time for a rejection from the editor -- one after another. Because after you've spent all that brooding time on nurturing genius ideas (or so you thought), the act of editorial rejection of them hurt so much more!
Now things are somewhat different. I am still not very prolific, but I can work when I have to. I still have trouble coming up with story ideas that I think are worthy of pursuit, but at least now I can put things in perspective and not be devasted and amazed at rejection. So what exactly has changed?
My attitude.
I think I have certain things I have to write in this life, and I will get them written, before I am dead. :-) And this singleminded purpose is now all that matters.
The other thing that Jenn discussed is the terrible shock of suddenly having to come up with money.
Boy do I know how that is (especially now -- I am on credit counseling, remember). It happened to me this 4th of July when I just happened to check my bank checking account balance and discovered that I did not have enough there to cover my mortgage payment that was due the next day.
I freaked out so much that my whole holiday and day off was ruined. I spent most of the day juggling tiny amounts of money in tiny accounts via phone banking, could not sleep that night from terror of losing my beloved house, and finally ended up making plans to drive to a distant credit union the next day, missing half a day of work, just so that I could manually withdraw the last of my meager backup savings and put it in the other account on the same day that the mortgage payment was to be automatically withdrawn.
Living on the edge is really stressful, and my complete sympathies to any of you who also live this way.
7-8-01
NEWSFLASH!
Actually there's not so much to report except that I am busy, and that's a given. Except that my "busy" has become a kind of everpresent state of being, a diffused sense of constantly doing something, of needing to do something nonstop, and it is making me unable to actually get anything particularly constructive done. It doesn't help that money woes are stressing me out, and lemme tell yah, credit counseling is a bitch. I just dunno how I will be able to manage this for the next 7 years as I pay off my huge credit debt. It's only been one month, and I already feel like I am at the end of my rope moneywise.
But I also feel like this is somehow a turning point in my life. I know that I have to work hard, particularly now, to get all kinds of things done. The ironic part of all of this is that this is the time I feel most tired and most in need of just collapsing and doing absolutely nothing.
I would love to just stop time for about a month, and sleep and laze about in my own little microcosm, and then press the Resume Button, and get back to the world at the point I left off.
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since 11-6-99
