Return to high school

Later this month, I'll be going home to Beavercreek, Ohio, for the first time as a published novelist. All my family still lives there, so I'll be taking part in the usual family events—pizza for 20 at Giovanni's Pizza in Fairborn, a birthday party for one of my many nieces and nephews, and general hanging out, goofing off,and playing practical jokes.

But I'll also be doing some author events at Beavercreek High School, my former high school. ("Bite 'em, Beavers!" was our cheer.) The school's book discussion group will discuss Like Mayflies in a Stream this month, and I'll be there to listen to the discussion, answer questions, pass out bookmarks, award a copy of Stephen Mitchell's Gilgamesh: A New English Version to one lucky student, and admire the poster my sister made to advertise my visit, which I haven't yet seen.

Three of my nieces attend my old high school. I'll be talking to several ninth-grade English classes, which include two of my nieces, and to four Creative Writing classes.

I'm hoping to line up a booksigning as well, but so far, in a big blow to my ego, I've yet to find a bookstore willing to host me. But that's okay; I'll visit with a fellow Clarionite who lives nearby, meet in person one of my blog friends (yes, you, White Cat!), and see an exhibit of quilts made in honor of Barack Obama at The National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center in Wilberforce. Fun!

Update 6 March 2010
I think I've found a bookstore to sign at. Once I nail down the details, I'll post more.

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Somehow, I forgot to mention earlier that my novelette "The Hunt" was in the February issue of Jim Baen's Universe. Find it at http://baens-universe.com/articles/The_Hunt. According to the guidelines of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, this counts as my first professional sale!

Rose leaves are red

Spring is on its way. You may doubt it if you are in the frozen part of the country, but here in Southern California, we see the signs. Naked trees with tiny shoots of green exploding from branch tips. Finches brightening their colors in preparation for mating. Leaf clusters bursting out from rose bushes.

I love the new leaves on rose bushes almost as much as I love roses. New rose leaves can be red, burgundy, or bronze; flat or folded or frilly. Here, for your enjoyment, are some pictures I took last of new rose-bush leaves.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Writers don't get snow days

I am not prone to jealousy, but I felt more than a touch of envy this week as snow fell on much of the country, and friends got day after day off. I wasn't so much jealous that they could enjoy the unmatched pleasure of seeing a pristine blanket of snow, blue-white and sparkling under the sun, and smell the crisp fresh-snow scent. No, it was their unexpected gift of days off with obligations put on hold, the gift of time to read or daydream or catch up on sleep or some chores, time to empty the mind of everything that weighs on it and focus on something—making a quilt, baking bread, mapping out a new story or novel.

Of course, we writers can give ourselves a snow day whenever we want, at least in theory, and it's good for us to set aside time to clear our heads and fill the well. In practice, though, I find it almost impossible to take a snow day. Week after week, my paying work and other obligations gobble up not only my fiction-writing days but also my evenings and weekends. Some of you have talked about similar difficulties on your own blogs.

Yesterday, I took a radical step: I asked one of my clients, my biggest one, for a six-month leave of absence. Once I turn in my current assignment on 1 March, I'll have space in my life for some snow days. First priority: Rest. I'm tired of being tired every day. I need to rejuvenate before I can be creative again.

Second priority: Do chores. A home should be peaceful and welcoming, but the papers and piles of books I have strewn about stress both me and my long-suffering husband and disrupt my creativity by their constant distraction and by making it hard to find story notes, background materials, and everything else.

Third priority: Once I have a clear head and a clear workspace, be creative again. Read. Write down story and book ideas on a notepad. Research ideas. Revise stories I've received comments on and send them out. Finish stories I've started and start new stories. Start a book. Get together with other writers. Make fiction my first priority again.

I have the luxury of taking a leave from my biggest client because my father left me a small inheritance. But I was too tired to realize it. It took the snow storms of the past two weeks and my desire for some snow days to prod me to search for ways to have some.

Is your writing getting short shrift in your life? Perhaps it's time to brainstorm ways you can work in some snow days. Like me, you may be surprised what you come up with.

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Thank you, Dad, for everything. Two years and I still miss you terribly. Edward Arthur Roberts, 24 January 1930–12 February 2008.

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The blog Allison's Attic will be giving away a copy of Linda Weaver Clarke's Melinda and the Wild West. Enter by February 14. (I interviewed Linda here.)

Other friends, if anyone features your book at their blog, please feel free to send me an email. I'll put a note about the interview, the review, or the give-away on my next blog post.

You got to walk that lonesome valley

Like dying, becoming a writer is a journey you have to walk by yourself, and, as the old spiritual says, nobody else can do it for you.

Friends, relatives, and other writers can support you, critique you, encourage you, mentor you, advise you, nag you. They can pass your name along to agents and editors. They can praise your work to everyone who will listen. In the end, though, you alone walk the valley, book in hand, and discover whether it ends in failure or success.

It’s not only the dying and the writer who have a lonely path. So do those who watch on the sidelines. Remaining behind when a loved one dies or seeing a friend’s first book hit the bestseller list (or flop miserably) is a soul-searing reminder of how acutely alone each of us is in the world. We cannot selflessly take the other person’s place to save them pain; we cannot selfishly take their place to savor their joy. We are separated by a gulf so deep that no bond of love or hate can span it.

No wonder that a writer’s success creates such a wide range of responses. Friends may be proud, angry, ecstatic, or jealous, or take the writer’s achievement as a good or bad portent for their own future, or feel awkward about the new gap between them, or all of the above.

You’re probably wondering about now whether this meandering post has a point. Why, yes, it does. When we know how alone each of us is at some moments of our lives, doesn’t it make sense to help and encourage each other when we can? As J.K. Rowling proved, we writers are not in competition with each other for a limited number of book slots; good books create new readers eager for more good books. Any one of us, by being successful, can create opportunities for others.

Let’s be gentle on ourselves and other writers. We may each walk alone, but we’re in this together.

What is best in life?

What is best in life? “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women,” says Conan in the 1982 movie “Conan the Barbarian.”

We’re writers, not berserkers and thieves, so our answers are a little different. To finish a manuscript. To polish that manuscript until it shines. To sell that manuscript. To hold our published writing in our hands. To see our friends finish and polish and sell and hold their writing. To read our friends’ stories and books.

Writers' joys are often long to fruition and are not always under our control. Today I’d like to remind everyone of the small "bests" we can enjoy every day and that no one can take from us.

What is best in life? I answer: To hear the birds sing outside my window. To laugh at the silly antics of cats and dogs. To see the happiness of birds after their feeder is filled. To walk barefoot in the grass on a warm day.

To plant seeds. To smell a flower. To stroke a rose petal. To harvest vegetables. To drink a cold beer on a hot day. To eat satsumas in the fall and strawberries in the spring and chocolate in every season.

To go to Home Depot with my husband to get stuff. To touch his hand, his face, his hair. To laugh together. To laugh with my critique group. To read the funnies in the newspaper. To get an email or Facebook message from a friend.

To do a kindness. To receive a kindness. To see a kindness done.

To see fresh-fallen snow and hear the snow-silence and smell the ice and cold.

To strive for perfection. To sometimes achieve it. To sometimes fail and still be happy with myself.

To listen to music. To play music. To dance in bare feet with my friends.

To smell a new book. To write a sentence that dances. To find the perfect strong word to end a sentence or a paragraph or a chapter.

To walk the streets of New Orleans. To see the ancient, twisted live oaks and the flower-filled balconies. To come upon a camel or musician or a parade where you weren’t expecting one.

To walk under the sun.

What is best in life? It is everywhere around us.

Blogging today at Novel Spaces

Today at the blog Novel Spaces I'm discussing how much and what a speculative fiction writer should read. I'd love to hear your answers to those questions.

Five months after Clarion

Before I went to the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop this past summer, I was aware of the "Clarion Curse": Some people go to Clarion and can't write again for months or years afterward. Some never write fiction again.

In my Clarion class of 18 people, some have been amazingly productive, cranking out story after story and selling to good markets. I'm not among that group. I spent the fall promoting Like Mayflies in a Stream and only began to try to write again in December.

I say "try" because I didn't succeed. I started stories, then couldn't get the words from my head onto the page—or, more distressingly, was clueless about where to take the story. I kept pressing on, started a new story in January, and finally, after a week and a half of slow slogging, completed a 3000-word story yesterday.

What accounts for the Clarion Curse? I suspect some people stop writing because at Clarion they find out they don't want to be a writer as much as they thought they did. For me, my difficulties writing resulted from a combination of losing the ability to suppress my inner editor and fatigue from the intensive workshop that I still haven't shaken. (For those new to my blog, I have systemic lupus erythematosus, which saps my energy.)

Yet, Clarion was well worth it. Once I finished my new story, I thought it among the best I've ever written. I believe I'll  batter my inner editor back into submission and the writing speed I had before Clarion. I also gained the courage to take chances and to tackle painful, personal topics. My new story, for example, takes place in New Orleans after the federal levees broke after Hurricane Katrina.

Over the past five months, I've critiqued many stories and book chapters by people in my New Orleans critique group, people in my SF/F critique group in Orange County, and fellow Clarionites. Clarion has drastically improved my critiquing ability. I have a much better idea now whether a story is working (as opposed to whether I enjoyed it) and how it could work better.

Last but not least, my Clarion classmates continue to encourage each other and help each other with their stories. The writing of all of us should benefit.

I recommend that anyone who wants to take a giant step forward in their writing ability next summer consider applying to Clarion, held in La Jolla, California, or its sister workshop, Clarion West, held in Seattle. The application deadlines are coming soon—March 1—so act now if you're interested.