About “Erzulie Dantor”

Today my first professional SF sale was published in Apex Magazine (they publish great stuff and you should definitely subscribe). The story is “Erzulie Dantor” and it started as a response to a call for submissions to a lesbian werewolf anthology. I was looking for a new take on werewolves, and found scattered references to werewolves in Haitian lore called “je-rouges” (from “yeux rouges”: red eyes). They apparently want to steal children, though whether for eating or for making more je-rouges, I couldn’t determine from anywhere. This clicked with me because my sister-in-law had recently gone to Haiti to help provide medical services after the earthquake, and had sent back some heart-rending pictures. I thought that it was in times of disaster that legends grow strong, and this story took shape from that.

I brought it to Clarion, though not to workshop officially. A few of us had trunk stories we wanted to pass around, and Brooke, Erin, and Jake provided some really helpful guidance on what the story was missing. When I got back from Clarion, I didn’t want to use any of the stories I’d written there for submission because they all needed a lot of work, but “Erzulie Dantor” seemed ready with the application of the critiques I’d gotten. And so, it turns out, it was.
If you’re here because of that story, welcome! I don’t post a lot so I won’t spam your feed if you’d like to follow me. I have a page on this site that lists my stories., and will be adding this one to that list soon! I would like to get a few of them online for reading free and will be working on that over the next few months.

Anyway, thanks! If you have a comment on the story, please add it over on the Apex site!

Life at WorldCon, and After

So I went to what was technically my third WorldCon this past weekend, in Chicago. My first was the Millenium PhilCon, in 2000, when Mark and I went on the Monday and walked around what seemed to be a very nice convention space where interesting things had recently been happening. In 2002, we went to ConJose in San Jose and sold what few Sofawolf books we had, and listened to a panel where David Brin bad-mouthed furries, kind of. They both felt like foreign environments, even though I did go to PhilCon for years and years back in the late 80s and early 90s.

And then I went to Chicon 7 and watched a friend win a Hugo for a comic she published with Sofawolf Press. So that was kind of a way better experience.

Kyell said the words about Ursula best in his post, first paragraph. Ursula is a terrific person and a talented writer and artist, and the Hugo is only the beginning of great things for her, I’m sure. One of the highlights of the con was not only watching her get the Hugo, but being able to talk to her for a good bit in the Hugo part after. Jeff deserves the lion’s share of Sofawolf’s credit for that award, because he is the one who brought Digger in and put together the amazing print versions of it. So really I am just kind of lucky to be associated with some awesome people.

Anyway, I had intended to write more about Chicon earlier in the week, but as soon as we got back to the Bay (almost literally), my throat started feeling scratchy, then I felt all run-down, and blah. You know how it goes. So today I feel much better and I am tired of working today, so you get the post, hopefully not too late.

Chicon 7 was way better than previous WorldCons for other reasons. I got to see eleven of my Clarion classmates, the most in one place since we split up in August of last year (for me; I think there were ten or eleven at ReaderCon as well), and I am so happy to report that we all still not only get along, but actually want to hang out with each other. Scalzi’s prediction that we will travel around WorldCons in packs came very true. Two of our number are SFWA members, so we were able to go hang out in the SFWA suite; I got to see two of my classmates on panels; and we met back up with four of our previous instructors–not to mention seeing three of them up on stage during the Hugo ceremony (John Scalzi did a wonderful job of hosting, and presented Hugos to Elizabeth Bear and Kij Johnson). Our class did a group dinner, we met in smaller groups during the con just to talk about what we’re doing and about things we’ve read, and generally rekindled our desire to do cool things all together. One of my classmates edits a YA magazine and asked me for a story for it, so I have an assignment for the fall, and a couple of them said they want to write for New Fables. We are all getting going in this whole author-career thing.

In addition, I found that you can use the Clarion thing as kind of an ‘in’ with other instructors. Mark and I went to get a picture taken with George R.R. Martin, who taught at Clarion West this year, and he was happy to hear I’d gone to Clarion. He had his Hugo award (for Game of Thrones Season One) on the table, and pointed at it. “This is what you’re aiming for,” he said.

Of course, I feel a lot more comfortable with the writerly crowd anyway, and most writers are really nice to you if you just go up and express some sort of familiarity with their work. I talked to E. Lily Yu, who won the Campbell and is really sweet, and to Mary Robinette Kowal, who signed a bookmark for me because I didn’t have one of her books but I’d wanted to tell her I really liked her Hugo-nominated novella. (Tip: if you go to the autograph session of most authors toward the middle/end, chances are they will not be very busy. Sofawolf’s booth faced the autograph row and we often saw authors sitting there bored.) And I briefly got to talk to two editors there, one who bought a story of mine, and one whom I hope will–more details on those when I feel like I can talk about them. :)

Most of the socializing at WorldCon goes on at parties, and so Mark and I got back home (we were staying at my aunt’s place) later and later each night. Monday I was just completely wiped out. We slept a lot Monday night, but then had to wake up at 4:45 am (this is Chicago time) to catch our flight home, and so yeah, short sleep on top of the stressy weekend plus sitting in a tin can with 100 strangers = minor travel crud. I’m not attributing it to the con even though Alopex was sick the last couple days.

The upshot here is that at Chicon 7, I felt much more a part of the community, and Mark and I had such a good time that we’re definitely going to be at LoneStarCon next year in San Antonio. We’re going to start trying to get a couple of our Dallas friends down for it too, so be warned, you guys. :)

Sponsor Me! Please!

The Clarion Write-A-Thon, to raise money for the very worthy Clarion Foundation, kicks off in a few weeks, and I am participating! If you would like to toss a little donation my way to encourage me to write more, you may now do so! Every little bit helps, and I appreciate your support. Writing goals start June 24th, coinciding with the beginning of the Clarion Workshop I attended last year. Your donation helps make these workshops possible, and going by my class of last year, encourages some really amazing new fiction to make it out into the world.

Thanks for the help!

So you’re going to Clarion…

Okay, take two of this, since WordPress’s “Hey, try our quick post!” apparently means, “Hey! Type out a post and we’ll make it disappear!”

 

 I attended the Clarion workshop in 2011, and I remember going into it that everyone said kind of encouraging but also infuriatingly vague things like “it was great, but it’s hard to put into words what was so great about it.” Post-Clarion, all of us struggled to capture that feeling as well, and for a bunch of writers, it’s amusing to see how difficult it was to state plainly. But I think the reason is that we are not only aware of what we got out of it, but what everyone else got. For me to say, “I learned to critique better, I learned some things to improve in my writing, I met some amazing people in the writing community and gained confidence about my writing” sounds very dry and doesn’t convey the power of the six weeks we spent there. But to say, “I gained a writing family,” while it does convey that, sounds rather overblown and overdramatic.

The point is, I guess, not to stress about what you’re going to get out of Clarion. If you go in as a writer open to the idea that you need to improve and that you and your classmates are all there to help each other do just that, you will get your money’s worth and then some. I know that I was a little stressed about what to expect, about whether I’d fit in (and you will no doubt be told many times that YES YOU DO FIT IN and it will not be enough times but you will end up believing it in the end, I hope), but at the same time I don’t want to tell people what to expect, mostly because everyone’s experience is going to be different.

I do have a few words of advice and I will just toss them out here as bullet points:

* Double-check your logistical arrangements to be gone from the real world for six weeks. You can’t stop reality from interrupting Clarion, but to the extent that you can minimize it, really do so.

* Take advantage of the blog to introduce yourself and meet your classmates. It doesn’t completely eliminate the “getting to know each other” period, but it does shorten it. It was great for us to show up and be able to put faces to names: “Hi, Jim! Hi, Jasmine!”

* Set yourself at least one goal before you go, something to improve in your writing or your process. But also keep yourself open to new goals. You’re going to meet seventeen awesome classmates and six awesome instructors, and the ideas and suggestions are going to come at you like tennis balls from one of those serving machines gone wild in a comedy sketch. Try something new. Don’t be afraid to fail at it.

* Share with your classmates. You guys are all there to help each other. You are a team, and you can’t add any new people to that team. If you see divisions or cliques forming, blow that up. We were a pretty lucky class in that we all got along and stayed pretty tight–not that there weren’t conflicts, but we didn’t let them fracture the class. Your support for each other will be one of the best things you come out of Clarion with.

* Learn the path to Rock Bottom and Trader Joe’s. Really. It will save your life when you can’t stand one more cafeteria meal.

And I hope all you guys have as amazing a summer as I did last year!

 

Writing Update 8/11

I would like to have something interesting to say every time I post about writing. I would also like a van full of money to be driven up to my house and abandoned. We make do with what we have.

So I finished a draft of that story I started at Clarion. It’s 9000-some words and though it has a decent start and a reasonable ending and some good characters, it is kind of held together with spaghetti at the moment. I will let it sit and then revise.

In the meantime, I am working on a short piece for a fellow Clarionaut, and I will share a small bit of it here:

So the boy came to be called Theophilus, beloved of the gods. He danced for the town at every sacrifice, and every season he danced, the town remained blessed. Only Theophilus’s father was troubled. He knew that those who attract the attention of the gods seldom live long, peaceful lives.

Processing Clarion

Six instructors, seventeen classmates, twenty-three friendships.
Over one hundred stories read and critiqued.
Seven stories written, plus two more started and not finished (one nearly done).
Four new story ideas to work on, six stories to revise and possibly send out to markets, two novels awaiting application of learnings, one website to construct.

Clarion was amazing, life-changing in certain ways (not as much for me as for some of my classmates), incredible fun, and incredibly intense. We saw few people apart from each other in the normal course of the day, thought about writing all the time, read an incredible variety of stories from some amazing talents, and had to think up something useful to say about each and every one. In between, we had some wonderful professionals giving their thoughts on our stories, giving us tips from their lives, and playing drinking games with us on weekends.

I really loved the experience, and I’m so excited to be moving on into some story projects, finishing up other stories, working on the novels. It isn’t that I feel I wasn’t a writer before; none of us should have felt that, because we were told over and over that we are a talented group (otherwise we wouldn’t be at Clarion). It’s that I feel more confident. I know a few more tricks. I have a list of things to keep an eye out for. And I have a feel for what makes a good story, just by dint of having read wildly different stories from wildly different people. I know I can make mine better in ways I wouldn’t have thought of before. It means more work, but I’m so looking forward to it.

And we’re already starting to plan meet-ups at future conventions. Which is cool–I already can’t wait to see everyone again, and it’s only been three days since we were all together last (two and a half days since I said good-bye to my roomie at the airport). We are all full of bright plans and dreams and hopefully some measures of confidence, and it’s going to be a fun few years coming up. :)

One thing on my list is getting my vanity domain up, with this blog moved over there and a few stories up for people to read. August is kind of a busy month, but I think I can get some of that rolling. So watch this space for pointers to the next space…

Clarion Reflections

It’s not over yet; we have two more critiquing days and three more wonderful evenings to spend together before we go our somewhat-less-separate ways. But this has been a truly remarkable experience, participating in the creation of a new community, or, perhaps more accurately, a new iteration of an existing community. We have been assured by previous Clarion graduates that we are all part of the same tribe now. Still: eighteen people from geographically and somewhat culturally diverse backgrounds have spent five and a half weeks together, and now people whose names I did not know four months ago have become close friends and trusted writing companions. And we have learned a lot about writing along the way, and learned even more about ourselves as writers.

It’ll be bittersweet, the leaving, because of course I love my normal life and would not trade it for anything in the world, except for possibly a life identical in every way with a healthier bank account (but who wouldn’t want that?). The few occasions on which I’ve gotten to see my husband over the last six weeks have not been compensation for the time without (though I am dearly grateful for them). This little bubble we’ve lived in, though, where literally nearly everything is about writing–we critique, we write, we read, we repeat–has been a really wonderful experience. And will continue to be for three more days.

It’s kind of like that Avenue Q song, “I Wish I Could Go Back To College.” I always have, and for this summer, for six weeks, I kind of feel like I did.

(Of course, sitting in a library doing research kind of helps…)