I have has a few publications this year that are eligible for Nebula and Hugo nominations, if you were, you know, feeling the spirit.
Also, Brain Harvest is eligible to be nommed for a Hugo semiprozine, and Eden, Shane, and I are ripe for the editors short form category.
Just sayin’. You know. *kicks some gravel*
Muchly for my own ref, but maybe you like to geek out about speculative numbers, too:
On Monday, John Howell posted an excellent article about the ridiculousness of the SFF “ghetto”:
Especially interesting to me is that this continues, considering that the top-grossing films of the past several years are all, you know, SFF.
Also interesting: to read that Brian Aldiss was informed (when he was on Desert Island Disks) “…that SF readers were nerds who were poor and could not ‘get a woman’.” Rea-lly.
I’ve had a crazy week, crazier weekend–both crazy good. I started a day job as a community management consultant for Projectline, who recently made the list of Washington’s 100 Best Companies to Work for (by Seattle Business Magazine)! That’s been a bit all-consuming, but pleasantly exciting. My co-workers are very smart, engaged, and interesting people, the work is going to be challenging, the best of what I could hope for, really. I feel super lucky for finding this gig, especially in such an unlikely economy.
Friday was the combo Locus Awards/Clarion West party in honor of John Kessel, who just finished teaching week one. I went to Kessel’s reading at the University Bookstore Tuesday night, and was too awestruck to introduce myself–I am the hugest John Kessel fan in creation. Seriously. When I was writing lit fic, banging my head against walls, I read Kessel’s story “Buddha Nostril Bird,” which singlehandedly made me reconsider genre (I grew up a fan, as most of you know/guess, but somehow never thought, for some idiot reason, I could do serious literary work in SFF. Dumb). But that story led me to seek out more of his work, which got me reading again in the genre, which was the kick in the head that I needed. Anyway, Kessel = ROCK STAR in my head, so Friday, pal Todd Vandemark (a current CW student and author of this week’s excellent Brain Harvest story) introduced me and I managed to effuse without creeping him out. I even got to buy him a drink.
Saturday was the Locus Awards/Science Fiction Hall of Fame Induction. So.many.writers.and.artists. Got John Kessel and Nancy Kress to sign battered copies of their books for me, then walked around and just goggled at people with my CW fam (Maggie Croft, Chris Reynega, Carlton Mellick III, Rose O’Keefe and friends were up for the event). I even talked to quite a few other people, including Elizabeth Bear, who is super funny and really nice, and got a signed print for my Chris from Michael Whelan (who was also very, very, very nice!).
I was publicly shamed for not wearing a Hawaiian shirt, as required, but was sufficiently penitent, so I think Connie Willis (my teacher, my heroine, and now, 2009 SF Hall of Fame-r) forgave me.
Is your head swimming yet? Mine is.
Sunday, I missed the Pride parade, but did have a pho breakfast with Chris and Maggie before they took off back to the Bay Area. Then, seriously, I can’t remember anything else I managed to do, of any note, aside from watch a bit of “Ninja Warrior” with husband, have a Brain Harvest editorial meeting, and eat ice cream for dinner—one of the few truly awesome things about being an adult—I mean, if I have to deal with gravity and taxes, then I should treasure my ice cream dinners.
Now the week turns back on itself and I am at my day job again. Tonight—CW writeathon writing time—tomorrow, the Karen Joy Fowler reading at the University Bookstore (7pm, free!). Come! I’ve never seen her read, but I have heard piles and piles of great stuff about her.
So, I was lucky enough to snag a free copy of the August/September 09 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction in a blogging promotion, which made me really excited because I’m a pretty shameless F&SF fangirl, with a respectably sized pile of back issues stacked on one corner of my office bookshelf. So, when my issue arrived, fat and ripe, I was stoked.
It’s a damn fine issue, although it’s lighter on the SF this time around, and weighted towards fantasy. Good-enough fantasy, well-crafted and tempered, but enough to remind me that I just don’t love reading high or middle fantasy in general. I’m cool with singular elements of fantasy–dragons, swords, magic, and the like–but I zone out of a piece if there’s a convergence of multiple classic fantasy elements. In fact, as I paged past a few of the opening fantasy stories, I came across Elizabeth Hand’s Books column which quotes the great Ursula Le Guin (Hand is reviewing Cheek By Jowl: Essays in this part): “The only kind of fiction that is read with equal (if differing) pleasure at eight, and at 16, and at 68, seems to be the fantasy and its close relation, the animal story.” And all I could think was, Oh, Ursula. I wish it were so.
So, I have to admit there were some stories in here that I skimmed. But there were a few that stood out and will earn this issue a place on top of my groaning stack: “Icarus Saved From The Skies,” a translation of a short piece by French Fabulist Georges-Oliver Chataureynaud whose ending has all the punch of a tickle but bowls over in its restraint; Albert E. Cowdry’s “The Private Eye,” worth its weight in gold for style alone; the moody and quiet (and done in artful second person), “You are Such a One,” by Nancy Springer; and my favorite, editor Gordon Van Gelder’s choice reprint from 2000, Tina Kuzminski’s “The Goddamned Tooth Fairy.”
All in all, fangirl status remains thumbs way up.
So, here we go. This is the project I have been muttering about under my breath and bouncing in my chair over:
On March 1, 2009, Brain Harvest: An Almanac of Bad-Ass Speculative Fiction will begin its intrepid voyage, bringing you the best speculative short fiction we can find.
Brain Harvest will publish on the web and on your mobile device. We’ve noticed that a lot of reading is happening in non-traditional ways (hey, we see you, over there, glued to your iPhone or Blackberry. If you’ve got ten minutes, we’ve got the best SFF you can hold in your hand).
We pay “pro-rates” (5 cents a word) for stories 100 – 750 words.
We will be opening for general submissions on February 15, 2009. Please do not submit before then–we’ll delete everything dated before then.
Go to http://www.brainharvestmag.com/submit for full guidelines.
We are also offering a low-cost, high-awesome crit service, Fresh eyes, starting now. Depending on your needs and budget, you can rent up to four pairs of fresh eyes who will read your fiction and provide a one-page written critique in a timely fashion.
Find out more about Fresh eyes at http://www.brainharvestmag.com/fresh-eyes.
When I first got out of Clarion West, I bemoaned my lack of process, or more specifically, I worried about what my new process was going to look like. Six months later, I think I have a stronger idea of how I work. I also have a solid idea of what my weaknesses are.
I work really well–in the moment. That moment does not come every day, and I no longer try and force that. I do force myself to write at least 4 days a week, but if the other 3 are uninspired, so be it. I also tend never to work at the same time each day. I’ve noticed a tendency to enjoy working most in the afternoon, but I don’t hold hard and fast to it. As long as I produce, I don’t feel too guilty about pooping on the two most cardinal and widespread bits of writing-habit directive.
Once I am in a story, I muck around and work very well, even if the story is a complete and total washout. Once I am in a story, I work more than 3 days a week easily, I work whenever I can snatch the attentive time and space, and I flail around and shape and write and rewrite until the sucker is as done as I can make it.
But here’s where I am weak: titles* and starting a new story. Case in point: I just finished a piece and I am actually pretty happy with it. It has begun its rounds at the magazines along with my other active, homeless pieces. Great. Right?
However, the thought of starting a new piece again leaves me slack-jawed, slightly nauseated, confused, and filled with anxiety. It seems like every time I finish a new story, I seem to have forgotten entirely how to start another story–and no number of writing prompts, seeds, or hours staring at my idea list in my journal can convince me otherwise.
I know, it’s totally unreasonable. And illogical. That’s why I am having, aside from the discomfort of the discomfort, discomfort with my discomfort.
So far, I have managed to always start something else, but only after a few days to a week of pushing/depression/desperation/apathy/bargaining. What’s the deal with that? I mean, I can learn to trust this part of my process, I guess, but what’s with the making myself miserable in order to earn a new idea? Is this why writers have such a bad reputation for drinking? Is my Jewish half asserting its thousand year mastery of genetically-induced navel-gazing and guilt? Is it my internal clock? Is it a personality flaw? Are these just, really, rhetorical questions?
Well, at least someone I love is doing better with all this: I opened my late issue of the SFWA magazine to see that one of my beloved CW classmates, Kristin Janz, had made the recommended reading list for the Nebula 2008 pre-ballot for her very cool, kinda-meta “Veritas Nos Liberabit“. It’s a great read and I am so very pleased for her.
* I’ve mentioned that countless times before and have since gotten some awesome guidance on the subject which I promise I will share in another post.
Let’s talk about WALL-e for a few minutes here. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a movie that I would want to spend more than a few seconds here and there talking about.* But WALL-e. Oh, WALL-e.
I missed seeing it in the theatre, because it was released during Clarion West, and I just couldn’t find 2 hours anywhere. But bless Netflix.
As you can tell, I loved it—for a few good reasons. One, using Hello, Dolly as a parallel story was a bit of genius (although I would have killed to have them re-enact the dance scene as an end bit). Two, those animated robots were some of the most convincing and emotional resonant actors I’ve seen on the screen (and I believe they only said 2 actual words—“Wally,” “Eva,” and “directive”). Three, the worlds! Oh, the worlds! For a girl who has a real problem completely neglecting setting in her own stories, I am a sucker for an environment as character. And this is proof positive that Miyazaki has bled over from the geeks into the mainstream. Fourthly,** anyone or anything that can convince me, after a modest childhood in New York, that cockroaches are adorable deserves a prize.
And fifthly,*** the science was so.almost.correct. I was flabbergasted and impressed at the attempt. Now sure, they forgot that space is FREEZING and a VACCUUM, and would kill that wee plant even if it was exposed for a millisecond, that WALL-e himself would suffer some, uh, effects at being out in space, and that, you know, at the end, he wouldn’t just “remember” everything that wasn’t stored on his hard drive…but the huge people with bone loss made me giggle out loud with pleasure.****
There’s been a lot out lately about so-called optimistic SF—there’s a Twitter zine and an anthology call—and I haven’t entirely been 100% on what optimistic SF would look like.
Now I think I know. Although it’s still probably not my thing. I think I get it.
* Like, The Dark Knight. My big response? The scene where the Joker, in nurse drag, shambles away from the exploding hospital was fucking awesome. Or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: WTF up, alienz? Etc.
** Fourthly?
*** Oh, hell.
**** As did the very idea of a cupcake…in a cup.
Of all the writing reference books I’ve ever owned, by and far the most awesomely useful one is one that I almost never see mentioned by other writers: The Random House Word Menu. Old versions are out of print, but available at used book stores, or you can do as I did and find one on eBay for a dollar. BEST dollar I’ve ever spent. You can find it on Amazon or from the publisher.
Now, I am pro all reference books. I love them. I have been known known to read reference books for a good time. But the Word Menu has consistently been my go-to books since the day it landed in my hot little hands.
What rules about the Word Menu is that it is exactly what it says: a menu of words, organized by topic and subtopic. Writing about a building and can’t remember what the narrow word strip that covers the seam between boards? Look up building and machine parts under structural components in the technology category, then scan the list (it’s “batten,” BTW). Or writing something about photography and need a list of several different kinds of photography? Look under applied arts, photography, then types of photography—and viola, find a list of different kinds of photography (aerial, animation, black and white, cinematography, daguerreotype, etc). Listd of types of cooking oils, wind instruments, verbs of sight, shapes, types of disasters, hair styles, diseases, railroad argot, architectural facades, tailoring details…have I tempted you, yet?
What’s the reference book you can’t imagine life without?
Yesterday, in my “quickie” post, I mentioned Eileen Gunn’s Hugo House class and reading (class = Sunday, January 25, reading = Monday, January 26, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.), but I realized I should have also mentioned this very cool panel:
“Online Publishing, Blogging and Marketing for Writers”
Hugo House’s InPrint Series presents a panel discussion with writers, bloggers and editors, including Rebecca Agiewich, Eileen Gunn and Ed Skoog, who have made the Internet work for them.
Thursday, January 29th, 2009, 7:00 PM
Hugo House
1634 11th Avenue Seattle, WA
$7/$5 for Hugo House members
Like I said, I will be at the reading, and I’ll probably make it out for the panel. Wanna come with?
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