Clarion Workshop Opens for Applications

The Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop is accepting applications for its 2010 class from 1 December 2009 through 1 March 2010.

For those unfamiliar with the Clarion workshop, it is an intensive six-week-long workshop in which you write short stories and critique the stories of your seventeen classmates. Ideally, you write six stories during those six weeks, but the number is up to you.

Although the instructors come from the world of speculative fiction and the workshop teaching focuses on spec fic, people who write in any genre are welcome to apply.

The lineup of teachers for 2010 is especially wonderful:

• Delia Sherman, fantasy writer and anthologist
• George R.R. Martin, fantasy writer
• Dale Bailey, horror writer
• Samuel Delaney, science fiction writer and literary critic
• Jeff VanderMeer, fantasy writer and anthologist
• Ann VanderMeer, publisher, editor, and anthologist

The online application process is easy. You submit contact information, a brief summary of your educational background, a few details about your writing habits and goals, and two short stories.

As you may know, I attended Clarion in 2009 and found it worth every penny. My writing improved, my critiquing ability improved, and I made seventeen friends-for-life, most or all of whom will be famous writers one day. I blogged about the experience here and here.

To learn about Clarion 2010 and the application process, check out the Website http://clarion.ucsd.edu/workshop.html and the links there.

If you want to know more about my six weeks at Clarion, please feel free to ask questions in the comments or to email me privately at ShaunaRoberts [at] ShaunaRoberts.com.


Thanks for visiting. I'll be blogging at Novel Spaces again on December 24, when I'll talk about networking at writers'conferences.

—Shauna Roberts

The Relationship between Writers & Readers

Shelia M. Goss gained success writing women’s fiction but decided to take a plunge into the young adult market earlier this year with the popular Urban series - The Lip Gloss Chronicles. Shelia welcomes the challenge of writing in multiple genres.

She knows that winning readers is hard no matter what genre. Her guest blog post today talks about the relationship between writers and readers.

The relationship between a writer and a reader can equate to a love affair. First it’s the courting period. Before the first date, the writer must introduce themselves and their book title. The title should be catchy; something easy for the reader to remember. Don’t be shy. Tease the reader with a short synopsis about your book.

If you’re feeling risqué, now would be the time to flirt a little by allowing the reader a sneak peek of the book by offering a chapter excerpt on your website.

Once you get the reader’s attention, put your best foot forward and make sure on one of your dates you show them an eye-appealing book cover for your new book. If you don’t have a book cover yet; don’t fret; the reader is not going to turn you down just because you don’t have the cover yet. In fact, with a catchy title and unique premise, readers will be salivating at the mouth to see you unveil your cover.

While building up a solid relationship with the reader, make sure you keep communication open. Communicate your release dates and where your books will be sold.

Readers, just like lovers, like gifts. Don’t hesitate to offer prizes for purchasing your book. Don’t forget about your faithful mailing list subscribers either. I know it may be hard when you have so many potential lovers, but you must treat each one as if they are special.

Also remember just like you, readers love others; so there’s no need to hate. There’s enough love to go around. Cross-promote with other writers and reach more book lovers. When the “release” date finally arrives, don’t be shy.

After courting the reader, the reader decides if they will take you up on an exclusive relationship for X amount of hours by purchasing and reading your book. When the reader picks up your book, they are expecting to be taken on a journey. Let the journey be enticing and enthralling so that your book lover won’t hesitate to tell their friends about the great love they’ve found in your book. In the book love fest, the more the merrier and the pleasure you’ll get from hearing about a book club selecting your book is immeasurable.

If you build a solid relationship with your readers, they will look forward to your next release. Continue to learn ways to improve your techniques and hopefully with each book release, you will gain more book lovers.

Shelia M Goss is the national best-selling author of six multi-cultural romance books: His Invisible Wife (2009), My Invisible Husband, Roses are thorns, Paige’s Web, Double Platinum and Hollywood Deception (2010) and three young adult books: The Lip Gloss Chronicles series: The Ultimate Test, Splitsville, and Paper Thin (2010). For more information, visit her website: www.sheliagoss.com or www.thelipglosschronicles.com

Just Say No to Married Men

Well, I can't get into my blog post today without admitting that all of this Tiger talk got me fired up. I'm a firm believer that Tiger Wood's business is Tiger Wood's business. He shouldn't have had to share his personal life with the world simply because he was involved in a solo traffic accident outside of his own home that resulted in a citation for careless driving.

Whether Tiger fooled around on his wife or not, there's been a ton of talk lately about infidelity. It is my belief that women need to Just Say No to Married Men. I've created a T-shirt and maybe the next step is to write a book, I'm not sure, but I do think this Just Say No mindset is needed. So many men are crucified for cheating on their wives, and yes, wives cheat as well, but the negative concept of men who cheat is much greater. I have been hit on by married men, I have friends who date married men, I know women who are wives whose husbands have a mistress, or two. And what I believe is that we women can only help ourselves by raising our standards and refusing to date men who are knowingly taken, and especially men who are married, if for no other reason than we must respect ourselves. And also because of the fact that the unsuspecting wife at home whose husband is in a hotel room with his chick on the side, could be you.

Luckily, I've never experienced the issue of being cheated on by a husband, but I do hear from lots of women who complain about their cheating spouses. We blame men time after time, but as Steve Harvey said during an interview on Good Morning America a while back, men wouldn't cheat if there was no one to cheat with. At first I thought that statement was a cop-out - a way of blaming it all on the other woman. Men need to control themselves and think with their upper head, not the lower one. But then I thought about it some more, and in my opinion, he was absolutely correct. We women must learn to Just Say No to Married Men - whether he's buying us a two-piece meal, or a diamond tennis bracelet, or paying our rent - we need to value ourselves more and demand that men value us as well. I know it's tempting, all of you ladies who give in, but how much is our self respect worth? Can you put a dollar value on it? Let's leave that to the hookers on the street.

And so, I guess you could say I'm on this crusade to encourage women to think twice the next time "someone's husband" calls and wants to come by and spend stolen hours, or the next time you meet up with him on vacation knowing that at 6:00 a.m., he'll need to call his wife while you lay next to him in silence like a good little secret. We women, and I include myself, must start respecting the wife/girlfriend/main squeeze. If we contribute to the problem, we can only point the finger back at ourselves. This is no cure for cancer, but being mindful can make a difference by curbing this cheating epidemic, one NO at a time.

I've created a blog that launches on December 15, 2009 - http://www.justsaynotomarriedmen.com/. I've gotten dozens of orders for T-shirts, and I'll continue to talk about it as long as others wish you share their stories. We'll have guest bloggers - faithful married men - cheating men - cheating women - deceived wives - the other woman, etc., and we'll chat about what we can do to encourage monogamy. And who knows, maybe I'll create a Just Say No to Married Women T-shirt, too. But for now, I'll start right here by saying simply - what goes around, comes around. Karma is a bitch! And karma's name just might be Bambi!

Your thoughts are welcomed! :-)

Research: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

From A Fistful of Dollars to High Plains Drifter, there’s nothing I love more than a Clint Eastwood western. So I’m playing on the name of my favorite to talk about researching my work-in-progress.

The Good: After successfully completing both Parisian Patisserie and chocolate baking classes, I can now whip up puff pastry, éclairs and spiked chocolate truffles. All from scratch.

The Bad: Sometimes a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. All I want to do is make and EAT my delectable creations. And let’s not forget about those 14 pounds I put on writing my last book. Arrgh!!!!

The Ugly: Now when I say a book is kicking my tail, I’ll really mean it! Boot Camp workout classes also started this week. Yowza! The only person that hates a ::really tough:: 6 am workout more than me is my poor heroine.

So tell me some things you’ve done good, bad or ugly in the name of research????

Phyllis
www.phyllisbourne.com

Building a reality-based writing career

Many, if not all, writers -- published or not -- are looking forward to the day they can cut the chains of their "day job" and write full time. The cold reality is, probably never.

Of all the writers I know, only one is full time -- and that's stretching it a bit. Kevin (no relation) is a newspaper man; his day job is writing nonfiction, his writing writing is science fiction. Keith, one of the most prolific writers I know, would not make ends meet without his editing gigs. Scratch any writer and you'll find (just running through a list of my writerly friends) a psychiatrist, a software designer, a college instructor, two teachers, a graphic designer, a retail store manager, a retail store clerk, an IT guy for a large corporation, and a salesman. I'm a case manager for a family preservation services agency.

The reality of writing is that the income is not steady enough. Loan agencies can not include money from writing when figuring your debt-to-income ratio because past sales are not an indicator of future income. Which may annoy a writer fresh off his first novel sale, but is wise. In 2009 my earnings as a writer were about 1/3 of what they were in 2007; which is to say more than any year up to 2003, about the same as 2004, but less than 2005, 2006, or 2008. There's no pattern to my earnings, and without my day job there would be months with no income at all.

In her invaluable Freelancer's Survival Guide award-winning author and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch does not recommend going completely solo until you have the resources to cover living expenses, medical insurance, potential emergencies, et al., for at least a year set aside. By that standard, I see no way I will ever be in a position to write full time, unencumbered by a day job.

Does that mean don't even try? Of course not. The year of my first sale, 1999, I was in mental health, working with at-risk youth from 8AM-4PM five days a week, had a paper route from 3-6AM seven days a week, and taught English as a second language at the community college from 6-9PM three nights a week. I wrote on weekends and during the evenings I was not teaching. I mark the beginning of my professional writing career from 2005. That was the first year my income from writing was such I could afford to give up the paper route and the teaching.

A few rules, a work ethic, enabled me to reach that point.
The first rule, of course, is to write. I used a label maker to put a strip across the bottom edge of my laptop's screen: "Write. Do not read about writing. Do not chat about writing. Do not post about writing. Write."
The second rule is to treat writing like a job you need. As a paperboy (excuse me, media distribution specialist) I had to get up at the crack of you've-got-to-be-kidding-me and despite cold or storm or not feeling well, get 300+ news papers rolled, bagged and on the right porches before sane people were out of bed. There were no excuses for running late and calling in sick required a doctor's documentation in 12 hours or termination. Applying those standards to your writing schedule (i.e.: If you have a pulse, you are typing) can do more for your writing career than any other single factor.
The third rule is to have a plan. Set realistic objectives and have a clear-eyed understanding of the steps you are going to need to take to reach them. Here I was greatly helped by my wife Valerie's budgeting skills and the fact she will tell me what's what without hesitation or blink. If I had followed my instincts -- quit the paper route after my first few sales -- I would have been back in the part-time-job market, using up my writing time trying to find work, in weeks. (And stressed about bills we could not pay.)

I currently have a plan in place with a two to four year timeline (that flexibility reflects several factors over which I have little or no control). Somewhere (somewhen?) around 2014 you will find me teaching classes on creative writing (hopefully at a university, but a community college is fine) and spending the bulk of my time on writing original fiction.
I'll let you know how that goes.

In the meantime:
Write.
Treat writing as a job you need to have.
Set realistic objectives, and develop a practical plan for attaining them.
Take each step one at a time, and you will become a professional writer.

National Buy a Book By A Black Author and Give It To Someone Not Black!

I had another blog post in mind until I realized that here at Novel Spaces I had yet another platform I could use to help promote author Carleen Brice's fabulous campaign to bring awareness to books by people of color. I celebrated the kickoff of National Buy a Book By A Black Author and Give It to Someone Not Black month on my blog earlier this week. Last year, Carleen, who is a huge believer in buying books as gifts for the holidays, took the idea one step further and encouraged readers to buy a book by a black author and give it to someone not black.

Here's the deal. As naive as it sounds, I truly had no idea that black authors faced such a tough road in the publishing industry until I became published a few years ago. I knew the books were sheveled differently, and that black books didn't get mentioned as much on review sites, but it didn't hit home until I expereinced these obstacles first-hand. Talk about an ugly, eye-opening experience.

National Buy a Book By a Black Author and Give It to Someone Not Black helps to spotlight books by black authors, and personally, I hope it encourages others to be open to exploring the shelves of the African American section of the bookstore.

This holiday season, as you're making your list and checking it twice, think about broadening your reading horizons and give a black author a chance. You just may discover that we're not so different. Who knows, you may even find yourself a new favorite author.

The Fairy Godmother Effect

Okay. I confess. My life is littered with crud these days. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, too, but it seems that for months all I’ve been able to see was this mounting stack of impossibility. And, unfortunately, it began to affect my writing, zapping my creative juices and, subsequently, pilfering away at my productivity.

So this went on longer than it should have. (I believe it’s called a rut.) And then, dedgummit, I read Terence’s blog. I didn’t mention it to my Novel Spaces colleague then, but, um, thanks for the kick in the hindparts. It seems I’d unconsciously set my stick-to-it-ness aside and posted a sign in my brain like the ones limo drivers carry at airports, except mine blared FAIRY GODMOTHER.

Really, I was slumped in my writing chair wondering how long her flight was delayed and when she’d arrive to rescue me. In most uncharacteristic fashion I’d shut down and locked myself into a box I’m so good at thinking outside of. Then in a moment of melancholy I bop on over to Novel Spaces for my ritualistic read and “Bam!” Terence wrote:

What I need to do is stop waiting for some magic moment to come along that makes it all okay. So, no more waiting for enough money in the bank to relax. No more waiting for enough time to dedicate my entire day to writing. Wherever it is I am going, I m there, and just have to live up to the moment.

I hate being called on the carpet – and I’m sure he wasn’t thinking about my self-imposed life-exile when he penned his blog – but those words snapped me out of my funk. Sure, sure, there have been well-meaning friends and relatives offerings words of wisdom. One camp advocates taking a break, while another urges me to just dive in. Read a book, watch a movie, or use parts of something you’ve already written, have all been suggested. And ignored. I guess this time it took unintentional tough love from someone who knows what it’s like to make blank pages come to life that set me straight.

But, that was just part of it. The other hurdle was figuring out how to re-tool my brain to conquer my encroaching deadline. It seems I’ve taken to thinking way faster than I write, which has made capturing my thoughts much like corralling cats. Solution? Digital recorder. I’ve been walking around the house with a headset microphone and the recorder in my pocket, talking to myself as if I’m reading the story in my head aloud.

So, far, I like the method. I no longer feel like my plot is always a few steps out of reach of my keyboard. I guess I’ve found my way out of that box I’d slithered into and put away my little poster board driver-in-waiting sign. Now that I’m back on the road to productivity, I’ll still keep an eye out for the Fairy Godmother. If she shows, I can send her your way if you’d like.

Stefanie
www.stefanieworth.com