Thursday, March 2

March already.

Not much to report except for there has been some trouble on my
workshop's e-mail list and harmony has finally been restored. I don't
want to get into much detail in a public journal, but I must say I feel
much better. The trouble lasted for only a day and a half. It felt like
a week!

Now it's back to writing.

More later.


Sunday, March 5

Beware! Very long entry!

I am now officially a Web Rat. Click on the Web Rat gif-link above for
more journals. Thanks to Trey who recommended my journal.

This is a good time to talk about the writing community in Eugene,
Oregon. If it doesn't seem like bragging, that is. :)
I moved here from Minnesota for this community of writers, so if I want
to reaffirm the correctness of that decision, I should feel free to do
so.

I don't know how Eugene attracts writers. Actually, Eugene is very
liberal, friendly, and known as the place where old hippies come to die.
Tie-dye has always been in. There are always Volkswagon Bugs (old or
new) and vans zooming around town. We love our trees around here. We get
a good amount of organized protests involving trees, the environment,
city expansion.

It does attract a significant number of fantasy and science-fiction
writers. Jerry and Kathy Oltion, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ray Vukcevich, J
Steven York, Dave Bischoff, Bruce Holland Rogers. Of course, Damon
Knight and Kate Wilhelm were the first ones. Then much later, Dean
Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch moved here.
Dean and Kris started the workshop in '86 or '87, I don't remember
exactly when. They moved to the Oregon coast in '95
The workshop still goes on, of course, and we still see them from time
to time.

Dean and Kris have given me a place to go for Thanksgiving. Every year
they invite writers (mostly) that don't have family locally for Turkey.
That's nice and I'm thankful for it.
I've spent Christmas with some of them. The last two years I've gone
over to Jerry and Kathy Oltion's to exchange dollar gifts with everyone
and to read Christmas ghost stories. Jerry, Kathy, Dean, Kris, Steve and
Chris York, Nina, and Ray are the regulars besides someone new. This too
I am thankful for.
I've even spent a Christmas with Bruce Holland Rogers and his wife Holly
Arrow.
I go over to Nina's for Japanese Anime sometimes.
We meet at Borders the first Thursday night of every month just to
socialize.

Sometimes we get a group to go to the movies.
We help each other move.
We feed each other's cats when someone goes out of town.
Jerry Oltion lets me use his old computers to write on.
I have a low-rent apartment thanks to workshop member Dan Young. Steve
and Chris York used to live in the apartment I'm living in now. Ray
Vukcevich is my neighbor. I got this apartment because of the friends I
have, the people I know.
And we cheer each other on when we get sales and award nominations.

I haven't even gotten to the Tuesday night workshop yet. There's so many
new faces in there now. The workshop is still a professional one after
all these years. Eric Witchey comes from Portland and Devon Monk comes
down from Salem each week. Eric says the Wordos is the best workshop he
has found. It has a glue to it that is lacking in other workshops.
Everybody is focused on professional criticism and the critiques never
get personal.
Other newer workshop members include Dustan Moon who has had one or two
short story sales. We have a local TV news anchor man who has written
six or seven novels. He'll sell them some day. We have Patty Briggs as a
member and she has a couple of novels published.
And there's some old faces making great gains in selling fiction. Alan
Roberts, who has been in the workshop since the beginning, recently had
his first sale. His stories keep getting better and better. Jerry Wolfe
has had a couple of short story sales and is working on a novel. Martha
Bayless has sold to Playboy. Leslie What is on this year's Nebula
ballot.

The other workshop I go to is a Monthly workshop at Kate and Damon's
house. Bruce Holland Rogers goes to this one. So does Leslie, Martha,
Nina, Dave Bischoff, and Jerry Oltion.
As a community, we learn from each other. I know I learn from everybody.
It's exciting to be around all these writers working on fiction and
trying to sell it.
The reason for this long and rambling entry (thanks for staying this
long!) is that I've realized it is more than a workshop or workshops.
It's bigger than just one writer or a few. It IS a community and this
week for the first time I felt a deep heartfelt connection to it. It's
like a family, to tell you the truth.

Why did it take so long you may ask? I've lived here for over five
years. I think it has to do with deep introspection in the last two
years along with reading Bruce's colum in Speculations. Because of that,
I've made modest gains in the last year. More rejections, still a low
number, but now I've been keeping the stories out there.
Now I feel like I belong. Not only because of those modest gains, but
also for the friendships I have made with the other writers in this
community.

This has become home.


Tuesday, March 7

I received rejection #4 today from Weird Tales. Now where can I send
this one next . . .

Our workshop has been busy. We critiqued three stories tonight, three
last week, and two more were handed in for next week. A lot of these
stories came from Dare To Be Bad. We may have to do these Dares more
often


Sunday, March 12

Not a bad weekend. Started a new story. I'll see if I can get that one
done in a reasonable amount of time. I read some more of de Lint's
"Someplace to be flying." I got that book as a freebie at World Fantasy
last November. I like Charles de Lint's fantasy. There's wisdom in his
stories and his writing is just great. I've read only one other novel by
him, but I've read many many of his Newford short stories. It's the kind
of fantasy that I would love to write, but I don't think it's my style,
it's not my voice. What I would write, it would be very different.
Besides, I would never attempt to write something like de Lint's work.
I'll just appreciate the places he takes me.

I saw the Green Mile this weekend. It's faithful to the book, which I
have read. Good acting and tight story.
I have two or three more Best Picture Oscar nominated movies to see. I
just may have a Sixth Sense bias this year. At the very least, give that
child actor an oscar! I BELIEVED that boy saw dead people and all the
emotions he went through.

Tomorrow, another week. Work, write, work, write, work, write . . .


Sunday, March 19

Yesterday, I got a rejection from Rosebud. 63 days. The story:
"Messages". I got a form rejection, but it reads: "Though this is a form
letter, either Rod Clark, the editor, John E. Smelcer, the poetry
editor, or John Lehman, the publisher, has personally read your
piece(s)." Plus a hand scrawled note: "Thank you for sending "Messages."
Signed by the editor.
That's not too bad. And "Messages" is already back in the mail. Rosebud
encourages simultaneous submissions, so I had sent the story to Realms
on the 22nd of Feb. Perhaps I'll have better luck there.

Five rejections so far this year. Seemed to take forever to get those
five. Look at how many stories I have on my desk. Five! I'm down to
three in the mail! I could be getting so many more rejections if I got
those stories off my desk. :)

I'm in the process of revising one of those stories now . . .


Tuesday, March 21

I've been listening to Bruce Holland Roger's tape, Writing In Spite Of
Everything, and it's a treasure of inspirations, ideas , and good sense
for a writer to break down the barriers. I've found I like listening to
it while I do other things around the apartment.
This tape is something to go back to from time to time because sometimes
you have to be in the right place mentally for one particular bit of
advice to hit you dead on, creating a eureka(!) moment.

Writers Of The Future deadline is at the end of the month. I'm starting
to write on a new story AND to get a rewrite done on a story for the
workshop.

Have a good day . . .