Silver Thaw

I'm working on a story with silver thaw in it. We don't have any right now, so I'm working from memory. I've decided I don't like working from memory as much as I used to. Making stuff up is harder now too. Why? Because I'm aiming for specific rather than generic or false details. It's tough! I think my writing has improved hugely since I took the master's class, but it's harder now too. Oh sure, I get immersed in the writing and everything. But I spend a lot less time typing when I'm in the midst of a description, and more time with my eyes shut tight, trying to squeeze the right details out of my brain.

So much easier to look around and see and smell and feel. I'm in the library right now in a slate blue corduroy chair with tan piping that supports me like firm flesh--cozy and creepy at the same time. A totem pole towers against the pale yellow wall, ignored by library patrons studying their laptops. The wood and varnish scent have faded back to almost nothing under the smell of the carpet shampoo they use around here. Everyone is in a cushy chair except a lean man in a black and green windbreaker with a beat up old Mac. His finger pushes wrinkles up his forehead and I wonder how can that be comfortable, bracing your head on one finger. He looks like he's working and that things aren't going well, but he's calm, determined, the kind of guy I'd want fighting to protect me from bad guys. I bet he has scars from all his battles both real and cyber.

It's so easy compared to trying to remember the scent in the air from a silver thaw, and how the ice looks at night, and the sounds--I want to say it kind of crackles, but I'm not sure anymore. Maybe it only does that during the day when the pale sunlight focuses through it like a lens and warms the branches underneath.

Challenging, but doable. I sure wouldn't mind a silver thaw coming along, though. It would really help me out. I can't wish for it because it causes too much trouble for folks lucky enough to have a job right now. If it just happens to happen, then I'll squee.

Hardships

A terrible accident has claimed the life of Roberta Carlson, a dedicated convention volunteer in the Pac NW.  One of the passengers has suffered serious injuries to his hand and is still in the hospital.  The rest were relatively unscathed.  They're in Las Vegas at the convention they were all carpooling to because they had almost reached their destination and didn't know what else to do.  One of the survivors is paying for the group's flights home and there's a call to help him offset this expense.  Any monies beyond this will be given to Bert's family to help them out.  The family has requested that any messages of condolence be sent to genecon at hotmail dot com.    

Speaking of bad news, this just in.  Someone horrible and unprincipled stole four laptops and some other items from four students at Clarion West.  I can imagine all too easily what they're going through.  Not only are they in the thick of a very emotionally and intellectually intense workshop, but now the work they've done so far is gone (I hope they have backups of anything else they may have had on their laptops!) and their future potential to participate in this prestigious workshop has been very seriously impeded.  If you can help please do.  It's not easy to get into Clarion West.  They're dedicated writers and my heart aches for them.  I'm sure the thief had no idea about the heartache s/he has caused, nor is it likely that this person cares, just as long as they get themselves some money out of it.  Two Mac laptops have been volunteered on loan.  If you have a laptop you can loan or wish to donate please do.

On the scope of all things in the world these are small blips, but they're our blips, darnit.  When these things happen all we can do is support the folks in distress and take what comfort we can in that this too will gradually change from a tortuous present to become part of our community's painful, beautiful, difficult and wonderful history.  Into history we and all we do must recede, but life and work is never in vain.  It just is.

Dizzy come, dizzy go

I don't know if it's because I've been sick with that poopyheaded virus or because things are worse this month than usual, but I had to come home from work after only ten minutes due to pain and dizziness.  I'm still a bit dizzy, but better after a nap, a hot bath, and keeping my feet up for several hours.  I got some writing done too, into a spiral notebook.  Man I'm slow at handwriting.  I may have to borrow one of the two family laptops for a bit.

Tomorrow I have a couple of doctor appointments that will hopefully lead to a better, stronger, faster Kami.  I'm really feeling my age, no, older than my age, today.  Can I go back to feeling like a forty year old please?

In the good news department, looks like I'm in the master class for spring 2009.  Woot!  Paraphrased from the description:

The master class is two weeks of writer boot camp.
We give you a complete understanding of the business, how and why it works
the way it does, and we even run the writers through the next ten years of a
career as practice while they watch other writers do the same.  And at the
same time, we work on your craft, spotting what you are doing right and what
you need to improve to make your fiction sell regularly.  Very intense two
weeks.  Six full-time writers and editors, about 14 writers.  Very one-on-one all the way through.  As people have said, this workshop takes years and hundreds of mistakes out of your career.  

To say that I'm looking forward to this is a massive understatement.

Mulching, editing, it's all good work (ethic)

Blah blah blah sick blah blah blah yuck blah blah blah snurk.  But I'm getting better.

The kitty Kat has to go to the vet today to have a lump checked out.  I thought it was probably just a fatty mass but in a few days it's grown to the size of an eyeball.  Gah, furry eyeball from hell!  Hopefully it's something minor and the vet will deal with it in short order.  More news about this later after her appointment.

I'm also trying to pull together the support system I'll need to go to the master's course writing seminar in Lincoln City.  If I can pull this off--joy, rapture!  Then again, because of the cost, I won't also be able to go to the short story writing course (wah!) because I'll already be forced to take half of each of my pay checks for ten months to afford the seminar.  Ouch.

While corresponding with one of the organizers the words 'work ethic' came up.  That's apt.  When you're a writer you're self-employed, essentially.  When you have a day job you're working two jobs, and it's hard.  It's no good beating yourself up about not working hard enough.  That won't get you to sit down and write (though it might give you a nice complex to write about!)  Having said that, if you want the writer job you have to work.  Luckily I love writing enough that it's not a big chore to sit and work.  I look forward to it, even the editing, though I whine and complain about editing all the time.  Beats retail.  Writing gives me the same energy as gardening.  I may complain about the sore muscles and hauling rock, but I do it without hesitation.  Give me a big pile of mulch, I'll spread it.  Weeds?  I'm grabbing my tools and going after them.  Even when work that I love is hard, it's still satisfying.  When it's satisfying, it's not hard to have a good work ethic.