Got an email from Tim Mullins last week saying how much to send him for postage. So I went to the bank Thursday, got a money order, and put it in the mail that day. When he receives it, he'll send the package containing 14 copies of The Dream Engine with my story "Shiny Diner Blues" in it (two contributor copies, and twelve for friends, family, and coworkers). I doubt I'll get it before I have to leave for ICFA Wednesday morning, which would have been a nice thing to bring to the conference, but I will be getting them soon. Yay!

Have four pieces of fiction to be sent out on Monday. I spent this morning doing organizational stuff with my filing, alphabetizing the stories in my filing cabinet, and doing the same with the log I use to keep track of where my stuff is and has been. Seems very boring, but it helps keep things more tidy.

Just found out that Terri Windling will also be at ICFA, so I'm bringing along The Wood Wife on the off chance that I'll be able to corner her and get her to sign it. I'm glad she's going to be concentrating more on her writing, as relayed in Greg's journal, though her absence from the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies will be sorely missed. But her replacements in the form of Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant will ensure that many wonderful fantasy stories still be picked for the antho.

For those of you interested in going to Clarion, the deadline, April 1, quickly approacheth. Andy Duncan sent me a really great letter after I announced I'd gotten in, which I tacked to the corkboard over my desk at the workshop. For those of you lucky enough to get accepted, they are sage words indeed. I'm posting it with Andy's permission:

Jason, congratulations on taking the Clarion plunge. Be gregarious and make friends with everybody. Eight years later, about half of us from Clarion West '94 are still in weekly e-mail contact with one another. It's a great bonding experience.

More unasked-for advice: Whenever someone invites you to do something extracurricular, do it. You can sleep when you get home. Assume that for six weeks, at least, you can do anything.

Flirt and see what happens. This works. {It sure does; tis how I met my Janet -JEL}

Make friends with the staff quickly, and offer to help them whenever you can. This pays off.

Don't be one of those people who delights in trashing other people's stories. This is a powerful temptation at Clarion, as the sessions drag on, more so than in the typical writing classroom. Resist it. Be the person, instead, who finds something to praise in every story, no matter how benighted, and help the author write the story he wants to write, rather than the story you would have hewn from the same material.

Are you taking story ideas, story notes and reference material with you? You should. Take more than you need. You'll need it.

Whenever anyone declares unequivocally in the workshop circle that a particular thing can't be written or shouldn't be written, try to write that thing and prove them wrong. (I wrote "Beluthahatchie" that way.)

If you haven't read something by every teacher you'll have this summer, rectify that before you leave.

Take copious notes in every session.

Amass a reading list from all the examples and allusions flying back and forth. Go to the used bookstores and buy some of the recommended things and read them while the workshop is going on. Try to find out whether there's any single book in the history of sf or fantasy that you and all your classmates have read going in -- that discussion was one of the most interesting, and enlightening, that we had in Seattle.

By all means play Mafia if it's being played, but beware of it, too, as it is the addictive time-suck from hell.

And most of all, revel in your six weeks as a Pure Artist. Even if you wind up winning Hugos, Nebulas, Oscars, Tonys and MacArthur grants, selling more books than Tom Clancy, and landing a tenured position at Harvard, you will more than likely Never Again have a six-week span of Pure Artistry, free of day jobs, mowing the lawn, sitting in traffic on Hwy 54, etc.

Make the most of it!

Good luck.

Have fun.

Don't forget to flirt.

---

Now Reading:
The Wood Wife by Terri Windling

Stories Out to Publishers:
13 (as of 3.17.03)

Stories Sold This Year:
3

Novel Word Count:
um, uncertain