Clarion West Write-a-Thon Final Update
Just wanted to close the loop on this one. Clarion West – and the write-a-thon – are both finished now. In total, the write-a-thon raised over $20,000 for the program, which is fabulous. So no matter whether you sponsored me or another writer, thanks for the support! It will go to a great cause.
I mostly met my goals. I did do the two stories and two poems, and got half-way through the novel re-draft rather than all of the way through. But at the time I set the goal, I expected less work needed to be done than I’m doing. I’ve added two whole new chapters and made significant changes to 14 others so far. So now I’m hoping it will be all the way done by the end of August rather than the end of July.
The extra bonus the write-a-thon gave me was the poems. They’re not brilliant, but they’re done. And sometimes as a writer, that’s what you get. Finished. I expect them to have a home (and maybe a re-draft of their own).
I hope to do it again next year!
Worldcon 2011 Schedule
I’m pretty happy with the 2011 Worldcon schedule. Lots of Mayan December launch activity, a reading for No Man’s Land, a party, and some great topics to discuss. I hope to see many of you there.
Thu 13:00 – 14:00, The Amish Approach to Changing Technology: The Error of Presumed Neutrality of Technology (Panel), D05 (RSCC)
The Amish do use technology, but they reject the idea that technologies are value-free tools, and they acknowledge that they can change social order, so all technology must be evaluated before being allowed into the community. Would we be wise to adopt this cautious approach?
Thu 16:00 – 17:00, Autographing (RSCC)
Fri 11:00 – 12:00, Social Media for Writers, A03 (RSCC): Writers know the Internet, but not all writers take advantage of its full potential. With the evolution of Social Media, potential readers are only a click away. But what exactly is Social Media? At this panel, you will pick up the vocabulary and background of exactly what Social Media is, what it can do, and what it cannot do.
Fri 12:00 – 13:00, Reading: No Man’s Land, A15 (RSCC) Defending the Future: No Man’s Land is an anthology of military SF, written entirely by women. Come and hear them read.
Friday 8:00 PM: PARTY! Atlantis Suite 1552 Come on by – Dual Launch Party for Mayan December and for Louise Marley’s The Brahm’s Deception.
Sat 11:00 – 11:30, Reading A14 (RSCC) I’ll give away at least one copy of Mayan December….
Sat 16:00 – 17:00, KaffeeKlatsch: KK1 (RSCC)
Sun 11:00 – 12:00, How I Learned the Craft: Three of My Favorite Books on Writing (Panel), D03 (RSCC)
Authors share and discuss three books on the craft of writing that they recommend to aspiring writers and tell why these works are so helpful.
Contest to Celebrate early e-release of Mayan December
I got an unexpected gift today from Prime Books. Perhaps it will cause a few of you to get gifts, too. Mayan December can now be purchased in eBook for Kindle and Nook. So here’s how this might benefit you. The first three people who review the book in either platform and contact me via email (which can be done from this site) will win. That will be 6 winners. So the six prizes will be:
- 2 hardcovers of “The Silver Ship and the Sea,”
- 1 ARC for “Building Harlequin’s Moon” (written with Larry Niven)
- 2 copies of “Year’s Best SF 16″ which has a story by me and a lot of other great stories in it; and
- 1 copy of the military SF anthology “Defending the Future IV: No Man’s Land,” which also has a story by me and a lot of other great stories in it.
Winners can pick in the order they win — so the first person to post a review gets their first pick! Etc. Etc. You get the idea….and they are true prizes. I will pay the shipping to anywhere in the US.
Here are the links for the eBooks:
Mayan December at Amazon.com (Kindle)
Mayan December at Barnes and Noble (Nook)
Note: The physical book will not be available until August 23rd.
There’s no advantage for more or less stars, and no advantage for liking the book. I’m hoping reviews will be genuine. They must show that the reviewer has read the book! There is a time limit: Reviews need to be up by the time the physical book comes out…so the contest ends whenever all six prizes have been claimed or August 23rd, 2011, whichever is sooner.
And since we’re still climbing out of the great recession, any people who want a FREE chance at a physical book can email me, and I’ll draw for one to three winners on release day. No cost to entrants at all.
Just to tease you a bit, here’s what a recent reader said about the book:
“A brilliant mix of culture, history, science fiction and fantasy, Cooper has written a delight for the senses. A fun read with interesting characters, surprising twists, and interesting ideas. A departure for her, it will also carry readers away to a new place and a new time in a fun way they’re sure to enjoy.” – Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Science Fiction And Fantasy Writer’s Chat www.bryanthomasschmidt.net/sffwrtcht and author of the forthcoming novel “The Worker Prince.”
Readings, Columns, and Interviews
I got to read at Tuesday Funk while in Chicago week-before-last. This is thanks to Bill Shunn. One the web now: recordings of most of the readers. I highly recommend dropping in to watch a few – and don’t miss Bill’s poem. It’s short and sweet and he reads very well. If you want to hear my work, I read all of the short story “In Their Garden” which first appeared in Asimov’s and then in David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer’s “Year’s Best 15.” It’s a fun story to read.
For my most recent Futurismic column, I spent about a half day researching the current state of stem cell therapy. I was pleasantly surprised by how many ways it is being used and by how there is a lot less vitriol and fear out there now. I suspect that’s mostly because most of the work is being done with adult stem cells, so the moral ground is a little less questionable. Notice almost no comments – I get more attention when I rant. But I still found this fascinating and hopeful.
Two interviews have also come out. One is over at MilSciFi.com where I talk about “Cracking the Sky” and how a gal who hates war ends up in a military science fiction anthology. The other is at Heidi Ruby Miller’s blog, where I answer six questions.
Clarion West Write-a-thon Update and Misc.
Well, I’m reduced to my portable computer at the moment. My Sony all-in-one gave up the ghost yesterday morning and refused to turn on. No, I didn’t lose any writing files – I back those up. But I decided I needed my email badly enough to pay to get it transferred (I could do this myself, but not with a computer that won’t power up). In that hopefully-not-lost email is the data I need to send out my weekly update to the people who sponsored me – so I’ll miss week two, I guess. Have to figure out how to make that up. I also decided that with the rest of my ecosystem going Mac (driven by the iphone to the ipad to the Air) I’d just bite the bullet and go to the iMac for a desktop. This will probably mean some grumping as I’ve lost the ability to use the PC to do the stuff I couldn’t figure out on the Mac, not to mention a chunk of cash outlay I wasn’t expecting.
Here’s hoping the guys with Geek Squad hats do well, especially given that I kind of lost it over the fact that they felt a need to charge an extra thirty bucks to load a copy of Office for the Mac that I already owned onto the new computer. The $150 transfer fee (higher than normal because of the dead computer in the process) made perfect sense, but this last charge made none at all to me. Now, I manage an IT shop, so I know that the customer being grumpy doesn’t help staff feel like doing a great job. So let’s hope they do well in spite of me. :)
So…no writing today. Not because I don’t have other tools, but there are only so many hours in a day and figuring out what to do and doing it took some time.
On the plus side, I got to meet most of the Clarion West students yesterday. That was fun. This is the reason for the Write-a-thon – the hopeful, interesting, faces that we may all get to read published work from in the future. I also got a completely unsolicited compliment on my story, “The Hebras and the Demons and the Damned” which is in this the new Year’s Best Sixteen volume edited by David Hartwell. Sometimes those comments show up on the days you need them.
Tomorrow will be more writing oriented. I promise.
Write-a-thon Update
I’m safely back from Wellspring, where a good time was had by all. Certainly, by me. I loved meeting the other participants, my foot allowed a little more walking than I expected (yeah!! Getting better is good). I managed to get out two stories….so that actually meets the story promise for the write-a-thon. I won’t count them for sure until I get them submitted somewhere, but one is set in my Silver Ship series world, which I’m trying to ease back into so I can finish the fourth book in the series. The other is one of those short 1,000 word pieces I like to play with. I should get feedback on those from a favored friend and first reader later this week.
On other fronts, life and a lack of sleep has left me behind on a project for Futurismic and work has crept up with some extra demands in trade for the week off. Which is the long way of saying not much writing will happen for a few days.
The next big promise for the write-a-thon is novel revision. I’ll talk about that when I get it started this weekend.
For a thought to leave you with (found on a fence in Lake Geneva, WI)
Write-a-thon and Workshop Post #3
Wellspring continues to be fabulous. Last night, we read at the Hopleaf Bar in Chicago – a lovely event that Bill Shunn put together for us. Six of us each did short pieces and Bill read a poem. Every reader got ovations, and the beer (or cider in my case) was great! The next to last reader was reading a tense scene set in the grand canyon when a thunderous storm started sending flashes of lighting through the window onto her face and made the audience jump. The universe clapping for her, I think!
On the write-a-thon, I’m now about 3200 words into my short story. That feels a little behind, but I might be able to find more time today. Don’t forget that if you sponsor me, you’ll get an email with WIP every week.
Clarion Write-a-Thon and WellSpring Workshop Update
Okay – so I’m almost 2,000 words into the story, and a little bit stuck. I need a bridging event to get me from the set-up to the end. So I decided to stop for this check-in and let my hind-brain work on it. There are a few more writing hours today, anyway.
Crit on my first fifty was full of good ideas, some big enough I have to really think about them. I want to start working on fixing things right now, but I’ll have one more feedback session this week and I should wait. Besides, I want to finish this story and get one down on my goals for the workshop. Always, there is more than one thing to do.
Not to mention I’m now reading a GREAT YA I downloaded after I heard about it over dinner last night. Thirteen Reasons Why. It’s a brilliant story. Hanging out with writers always results in more stuff to-be-read. Sigh.
We are back at the Caribou, a pile of writers staring at various screens and doing nefarious things. The sky remains full of water and dark clouds, threatening but not yet following through. They tell us we’ll have real thunder-storms tomorrow.
Write-a-thon and Workshop: Day 1
Well, this is officially part of the Clarion West write-a-thon. At the moment. I’m in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, at the first full day of the Wellspring writing workshop. So like the Clarion students, I’m trying to learn and write and socialize and adjust and get used to new sleeping quarters all at once.
About half of us here have been to Clarion or Clarion West (I have not).
So far, I’m over 1200 words into a fresh short story, and I’m so tired I have absolutely no clue whether it’s brilliant or bollixed. I’ve been writing long enough not to be too freaked out about that.
I’m hoping for a fabulous thunderstorm or two. I’ll get my first critiques of my work tomorrow, and I’m a little bit worried. I’ve given this novel to one of my favorite first readers, and he didn’t like it one little bit. So for the first time in years, I’m a little apprehensive.
Back to writing (many of use are camping in Caribou Coffee, writing). In the meantime, if you want to sponsor me in the write-a-thon (all funds go to help sponsor Clarion West), drop by my personal page for the write-a-thon.
Oh – and the skies are “interesting”
Mayan Reading (Watching!): The Fountain
One
of the authors whose books I’ve been using for reference in this time period mention Darren Aronofsky’s movie “The Fountain” to me. It really does seem to mirror the Mayan sense of time, and I liked it very much. It’s part new age trip, part science fiction, and all love story, complete with some magical cinematography. It’s very strange in a good way.
Land.”
