Well. Ask, and you shall receive, it seems!

Just as I got done whining about how I wouldn't mind an acceptance, an email came through that my story "The Salvation of the Ooze" has been awarded first place in the Conflux short-story competition. (A very early draft of the first few hundred words appeared on this blog some time ago -- July 27, 2006, to be precise, but I can't figure out right now how to link right to it, because I'm too squeally. It's there in the July 2006 archive, though.)

Squeeeeee!

Another milestone, sort of

I've just finished the first draft (note: finished is the important word here) of my first post-Clarion story. Oh, I haven't been entirely idle: I've been revising and sending out stuff pretty consistently, and I'm simultaneously working on three large projects and a handful of smaller ones. But this is the first time since Clarion I've saved a file and thought, There, that's done.

Part of the problem is, I've been constantly second-guessing myself, as in many ways Clarion shook my hubris quite brutally. So many of the crits came as such a surprise to me that I became, at least for a time, convinced that I was incapable of telling good work from bad (specifically, telling my good work from bad). I just have to keep saying to myself, It may be crap, but it's MY crap, and I LIKE IT. And, of course, at the moment I'm writing it, I do like it. I feel very strongly that my writing must always, always be the best of what's in me.

I guess time will tell if other people like it too. I wouldn't mind an acceptance from someone about now. (I wouldn't mind it if it were as easy as wishing....)

What is the essence of art?

I read an article in the New York Times on Sunday about body types and shapes versus actual dancing talent and skill ("Funny, You Don't Look Dancerish," May 20, 2007, Arts and Leisure section, p.26). While a number of people are able to look at a dancer as someone who dances, rather than someone with a particular body type, most (implies the article) cannot. And this includes the audience.

Why is it that dancers must look a certain way in order to, as some would have it, dance "properly"?

Interestingly, writers are faceless (for the most part). Musicians come in all sorts of shapes (although it does help in opera if you have movie-star looks, apparently). But only "lean, athletic" people are supposed to dance. Anyone else seems to embarrass people, no matter how gracefully and confidently they move. Why?

Writers who write poorly are embarrassing. But writers who are fat? Or ugly? Nobody cares! (Something I find comforting, for reasons of my own.) A bassoonist with a big zit? So? A composer with a limp? Yeah, and? A director, an arts manager, a publicist -- all can look however they want. But people who are supposed to be looked at have to look a certain way. They have to be more beautiful than we, in our normal lives, could hope to be. Why are only beautiful people permitted to be graceful and powerful and noble? Why aren't people considered noble for their actions and talents and determination?

Mini-reunion with some Clarion buddies

Last night I had a great time meeting up with two of my Clarion buddies. My daughter and my friend Cathy were there, too -- an embarrassment of riches! It was amazing to immediately feel again that closeness my writing buddies and I had at the time (we may or may not have become friends in ordinary circumstances, although I suspect that we probably would have; in the Clarion setting we became almost family). We shared jokes, caught up on our writer-lives and our mundane-lives, simultaneously rejoiced and commiserated that so many of our other Clarion buddies were selling stories (and we, by corollary, were not). We heard readings by a couple of YA fantasy authors, which Margaret in particular enjoyed very much. I got to show off how cool my kid and my friend are.

A good evening. A very good evening.

The whole day, in fact, was great, and included going to "Behind the Emerald Curtain" (a "making-of" presentation about the fabulous musical Wicked), visits to a couple of bookstores and the Mac Store, pizza, b'stilla, and lots of walking around NYC. Best of all was that I got to spend so much time with my friends and daughter, though.

Send 'em out. Then forget 'em.

I'm in sendout limbo. This is when I'm supposed to shrug, say "The little birds have flown the nest, I've done my job," and get to cranking out more product. But I keep squinting into the hills, looking to see where the little birds have flown, and whether they will be bearing an olive branch when they fly back to me. And when, oh when, will they fly back to me?

Well, that worked.

I have just stumbled upon the realization that the very best cure for "all my writing stinks and I should ditch everything I'm working on and start again" is to send a story out.

Okay, so now I'll go write some more.

Growf!

I haven't written anything in a week, because I've been in DC catching up with many, many friends. (As my buddy Steph says, you can NEVER have too many friends.) It was stressful to try and see as many as possible, and it meant that there was pretty much no time for reflection, let alone composition, for the entire week.

I'm back in beautiful Milford, though, and there's something in the air or the water or the earth here that fosters creativity. So I'm hoping that once I've slept a bit, my word rate will go back up.

Meanwhile, I have a few stories out to various markets, and I'm (rather unrealistically) on edge, waiting in case they decide to respond more quickly than they said they would....