Katherine Mankiller

Ann Crispin's Writing Workshop Rocks

If you get the chance, I highly recommend Ann Crispin's writing workshop. She teaches beginning and advanced workshops every year at Dragoncon, and the beginning workshop rocked. It was worth the price of admission just for the manuscript critique. I plan to come back every year; I hear the advanced workshop is always different. Yes, I liked it that much.

Dragoncon pictures

Five Points MARTA station

Version control, don't fail me now!

Somehow, the story I sent Ann Crispin was missing a line I thought was in there. No wonder she didn't notice it. ;) It must be part of the conversion from Open Office format to rich text format. Note to self: Do not maintain too many versions of a story in too many formats. When sending it out, I need rich text and plain text. That's it. More versions means more chances to screw up.

D'oh!

Brian is hot shit!

His story, "The Girl with the Killer Eyes," will appear in The Best of Jim Baen's Universe 2006 as well as Jim Baen's Universe issue 3. Check it out.

No love from Austin

I received my annual "Thanks, but no thanks!" letter from Austin today. A sample, for the curious:

Thank you for submitting your script, Double Feature, to the Austin Film Festival's 2006 Screenplay Competition. This year we received over 4,000 entries in both the Adult/Family and Comedy categories. We recognize there are numberous competitions available to you, and we value your decision to share your story with us.

Every year's submissions are different in some significant way. The high level of talent exhibited by the entrants this year was truly remarkable. Our readers were impressed with the overall quality of work and returned many positve evaluations, making the judging process extremely challenging.

Unfortunately, your screenplay did not advance to the second round in the Comedy category. Entering contests offers a great opportunity to bring attention to your work, and you should not be discouraged. Rather, we encourage you to pursue other avenues of recognition for your script. Please remember competition are subjective by nature.

Huh, they didn't mention the Sci-Fi Award. I wonder if I should expect a second letter. I mean, surely they received enough Spec Fic scripts that they wouldn't give it to someone who didn't advance to the semifinals, right?

I'm also glad that they ditched the phrasing, "We were really impressed with the quality of writing, and your hard work really shone through." That's just not something I want to hear in a form letter.

Mattress Lust

I've figured out what I want to buy with some future novel or screenplay check: a Tempurpedic. Mmmm, mattress lust.

Yes, we're mattress shopping.

Of course, what I'll probabably spend said hypothetical novel or screenplay check on is:

1. IRA (to legal limit)
2. Taxes
3. Savings

Pesky reality. Who needs it?

We've already fallen victim to the dreaded Cheapskate Acceleration Tactics. Maybe we should tell the salesguy to go away until we actually want him.

I'll be patient, then...

From Full Unit Hookup's news page, dated 08/26/2006:

My computer crashed this week and unfortunately the FUHU submission log file was corrupted. This disaster doesn't mean I've lost all submissions to FUHU. What it does mean is that I'll have to rebuild the the tracking file I use to record all FUHU submission activity, which means longer response times. (Even though I keep monthly backups of all FUHU files, the submission file can change daily.) Sorry, folks.

Yeah, this sounds like a bad time to query. It also explains why they've had my story 79 days, which is long for them. Darn, and I was hoping it was because they loved me.

Hmmmmmmm.

Should I send the story formerly known as "Median Effective Dose" through Critters again?

On the one hand, fresh tasty brains eyeballs. On the other hand, third time through the queue, and it'll be at least a month.

I'm not quite done yet, so I suppose I don't have to decide now. Maybe I should drop it back into the Critters queue when I go blind from staring at it again.

Because I'm insane...

I'm considering NaNoWriMo again. I'm even trying to come up with a suitable crack plot that will lend itself to the crazy pace. I don't know. I just sounds fun.

Remind me I said that in November and point and laugh.

But seriously. I haven't 100% decided, but my talking about it here and coming up with crack plots sounds like I might do it. We'll see.

Dear Critters,

Please come back up soon. I'm jonesin' here! Must... do... this week's... critique!

*mouse hand twitches convulsively over refresh button*

Love,
Me

Research!

Inspiration just struck for an alternate history story which will require research. Two items in my random idea file collided. Mmm, research! Good idea file. Extra biscuit!

I'm really excited by this idea, but, once again, it's a situation without a plot. That happens to me a lot; I get a situation, or a character, or even characters in a situation, but there's no plot. Here, Plot!

Here's my sleepy question: Is it fantasy because of spoiler, or is it science fiction because it's alternate history?

P.S. Oh my darling Critters! I missed you so much!

NaNoWriMo.

I'm planning to do NaNoWriMo this year, and thus far I really think it's going to help. I'm trying to outline extensively, and I tried to plug Lizardfic the novel into an outline template I found online and there were questions there I couldn't answer. That might explain why there's no writing going on.

More outlines. More, more more. There must be many more if I'm expecting to write 1667 words a day. At the end, I expect to be much, much better at outlines.

No, I'm not going to NaNo Lizardfic. That would be cheating. I'm writing something silly that will either be hilarious or awful, and if it's bad enough I may never admit to it in public. That's not the point, though. The point is overcoming the inner censor, learning how to outline, and having fun.

After NaNoWriMo, I may be doing NaNoFiMo. We'll see.