Thursday, July 7, 2011

Clarion Notes: Day 11

Workshops: We've been plowing through each other's stories. Reading parties erupt in the common room each night and sometimes in the living rooms of other apartments.

Right now, there's a ukulele and didgeridoo party in here, pictured left.

After each workshop, we've had a lecture from Scalzi. He tends to focus on the business and marketing aspect of writing which, for selling fiction, is pretty damn important. It's definitely a change from Nina; I'm glad Clarion varies its instructors.

Tuesday's lecture was dedicated to money (ex. budgeting, choosing whether or not to keep one's day job, etc.), Wednesday's involved finding agents and avoiding scams, and today's was all about networking or, as it should more reasonably be called, successfully socializing with peers and people you want to be your peers.

I gather most of these lectures are touched on in his blog. Here's a photo of him with three of our number, Jim W., Andy, and Tim.

In my one-on-one meeting, I asked about maintaining a job while writing and about finding an agent with a novella I wrote in college. The conversation generated a lot of interesting notes. It eventually wandered into a discussion about the excellent idea of landing spouses with superior money management skills. Or, you know, marrying (or divorcing) rich. John Scalzi: a man of wisdom.

I also had a meeting today with the Clarion program director, Shelley Streeby, with whom I shared a trunk story I wrote before coming to California. Hopefully, I'll have time later this week to edit it and the other stories I've turned in so far. She's a great source for critique. Very precise and easy to talk to.

Time feels very, very short.