So I tacked the first two pages back onto 'Habitat,' incorporated Matt's edits, marveled at his ability to turn a wimpy sentence into a powerful one, and fired the results off to a new friend for review.  I think I can carry what Matt did forward.  I can't believe how much I've forgotten over the past couple of years.

In other news, it is very possible that I may get to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame at the end of the year.  I was a charter member, having read about it on slashdot before it opened, and just had to support it in principle even though I live nowhere near it and wouldn't likely get there any time soon.  We have this reunion of old friends happening the last week of 2007 and one of the tentative agenda items is the museum.  Even though it's months away I'm still incredibly excited at the prospect.  It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, and the idea of doing it with Sol, Bri, and Finn (and maybe J) is just about as good as it can get.  (Maridius, we'll have to connect when I'm there!)

The novel is in a binder now, and I've tacked up a bunch of cheat sheets on writing in the kitchen, along with a few notes and reference pictures specific to the novel.  I'm trying to surround myself with the story.  I still need to get these other three shorts off my desk before I really apply myself.  My personal deadline for the shorts is whenever Patrick gets here, because let's face it, I'm not going to be able to think about much else for what we've agreed is a period of no less than two weeks.  :)  

I need to get back to FM.  I know I keep saying that, and not doing it.  But I need writers, and there are some good ones over there.  Maybe I'll drop in tonight and say hi. 

So Matt Pallamary gives “The last camel died at dawn” as an example of a first sentence that does a metric shitload of work, and I'm still reeling.  

I mean, look at it.  Six words, and we know at least this much:

Camels live in the desert, therefore our setting is the desert.  It's the last, so there were at one time more of them.  One or more camels have already died.  Since this *is* the first sentence, these camels must have been damned important, and the conditions the camels and the humans associated with them are in must be dire.  We are in *somebody's* POV, and that somebody was around to see it die, and they are, in a word, fucked.

That is one damn good first sentence.

For what it's worth, I can't actually attribute it as a first sentence –  the nearest I've found is The Last Camel Died At Noon, by Elizabeth Peters.  I have no idea whether or not it's actually the first sentence of the book.  I also may have written it down wrong during the workshop.  

The inherent lesson remains.

This is on my mind.  I have this story I need to send out at the end of the week and frankly my first sentence sucks.  I'm working on it.  I will probably never acheive Camel Status but I'm going to apply myself to the problem. 

I'm at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference for my fourth year in a row.  I'm rooming with Dallas Woodburn this year, who is both a gifted writer and an extremely tolerant roommate. She's currently finishing her dinner (at 11:15 p.m. — it is Conference Week) while I type this up.

SBWC is a week-long conference, which I'm given to understand is pretty exceptional.  We have a great faculty, and there seems to be something for everyone.  My cousin discovered the poetry workshop today and she was so happy she actually cried.  Personally, I count Matt Pallamary's 'Phantastic Fiction' workshop as Home Base, and have since I started attending.  This year I added Lisa Lenard-Cook's afternoon workshop on Revision.  I'm also a volunteer, so I get to do some work for the conference as well, which I truly enjoy.  I love being a part of this thing.

And next year will be even better, because Patrick will be here, and we will do the conference together.  Along with everything else.

It is the fifth day of the conference, and everyone is getting tired.  I didn't workshop at all today, opting instead for poking at the keys a bit, trying to finish a short story I started around this time last year.  I have three short stories I need to get off my plate and into the mail so that I can turn my attention to my 2005 NaNovel, which actually says “The End” on the last page and could use a year's worth of work before I even run it through a crit.  That's this year's goal, though, getting that piece into a crittable state.

A lot of people are leaving tomorrow morning – today was Agents Day, the day on which people can spend 15 minutes with one or more agents, pitching a book or picking a brain.  Many people only come for this opportunity, and when it's over, they go home.  Which is kind of a shame – there are two more days of workshops that they could attend, six more chances to make their work better.  

I missed Ray Bradbury's talk this year, but it was recorded and I have the DVD.  I look forward to seeing it.  He reduced me to tears four years ago, the first time I heard him speak.  He is inspiring as both a writer and a human being.  

I've written a page today.  Only a page.  I'm rusty again — it takes so little time for that to happen, for my brain to lose its flexibility.  I need to get back to discipline.  It is tricky for me, as it is for all of us.  So many things require our attention, it is hard to know where to fit writing in.  I realize it can't fit into my nights anymore, so it's going to have to fit into my mornings.  This is going to require a major lifestyle adjustment.  But I am motivated.  

For now though, it's about time to sleep.  I've got workshops to attend tomorrow.  I want to get everything I can out of this week.  

In other news, tomorrow night I'm fulfilling a standing date made last year (one year ago tonight, actually) with Lisa and Fleet.  We had sushi downtown and made plans and predictions, some of which panned out and some of which didn't.  The plan for my writing did not, at least not in the way that we had intended.  But I'm satisfied by the way in which it did.

And lastly,  today I heard from an old friend, another member of the old AOL/IRC crew from Back In the Day.  It was great to hear from him (hi, Doug!)   He is also a writer.  Maybe I'll be able to convince him to attend SBWC in coming years, too. 

I hope that you're all well and happy.   Imma sleep now.

Cheers.

Douglas Adams changed my life several times, and always for the better.

I was introduced to the work of Douglas Adams (who I always think of as just “Douglas”) in 1987, by a friend of mine at boarding school. (Paul, you remember Carson?) She had Restaurant At the End of the Universe on an LP, and we listened to it every day in her room. We all have our dark days, and 1987 was full of them for me. But from that time forward the darkest of days could be mitigated a little bit by Douglas. I could open to any page in any one of the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy “trilogy” and find a reason to smile. Before long you couldn't catch me without a tattered copy of Life, the Universe, and Everything somewhere on my person.

In 1988 I actually took to carrying a towel with me, in a blue duffel bag that I painted with the raspberry-issuing planets from the early paperback covers.

He taught me to love language, and he pushed me to learn to use the right words. I used to sit with one of his books open and a dictionary beside me –Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in particular, which I read shortly after it came out. Words like 'crenelated' and 'promontory' I learned from him. And I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. I would never have written a word of my own fiction without him.

In 2001 he lived in my home town. He was going to speak at the university there, on his book Last Chance to See, which I had never read.

I had something going on that night. Nothing I couldn't get out of. I thought: he lives here. He'll speak again.

He died shortly thereafter. That was, in fact, my last chance to see. I never got to meet him, even though he was right there. This, too, changed my life. I haven't been able to shrug off an opportunity the same way since.

It took me another five years to read Last Chance to See, and when I finally did, Douglas did it yet again. This time he made me cry as well as laugh, and the world has never looked the same. My understanding of my place in it changed. I learned how very small I am, and how beautiful and important our non-human neighbors are. I now buy multiple copies of it at a time, just so that I have them on hand to give to people.

Salmon of Doubt was published posthumously. In it are two or three chapters that cover why Douglas was what he called a “radical atheist,” by which, he explains, he means that he just really, really means it. In one of them, he speculates regarding why humans are so determined that the world is Ours, and not Theirs, and why we feel so special about everything.

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!”

And for the fifth time he changed my life, and this time he was dead when he did it.

May 25 is Towel Day, which may seem a little silly, but look who we're talking about here.

So tomorrow I'm going to do what I used to do in high school. There will be plenty of other people doing it, too. And maybe I'll pick up Last Chance to See, read a chapter on the Kakapo, and laugh, and a chapter on the Baiji dolphin, and cry.

And I will know where my towel is.

I miss you, Douglas. Thank you for everything.

Time is just not my friend right now.

But fortunately, my actual friends are forgiving.

I have fallen out of the practice of writing, haven't done a lick of work on any fiction in weeks, haven't submitted to my writers group in a month and will miss tonight's deadline as well because I'm about to go the hell to sleep.

And there is this story that *must* be done, in a matter of days. It is absolutely vital that it be in a tolerable state by June 1. This weekend, maybe? I don't know.

The conference is coming and I have to pull out my binder from last year and do some math, and email the right person, and then think about Merchandise for a couple of hours.

This weekend, maybe?

I've gone back to the Corporation and somehow that nine hour work day is really cramping my style. Though the paycheck is sure nice.

I owe two critiques, one to Ian and one to Sol, both of which are overdue (Ian's only by a week, Sol's by multiple months.)

Maybe this weekend.

When I have some writing experience to talk about, I'll post again. Until then…

*zzzzzzzz*

My writers group is so frigging cool.

Okay, both writers groups. ;) (I still consider you FM folks 'mine' even though I don't show up much anymore. But you're too awesome to let go of.)

Every other Wednesday I drive an hour to meet with three other writers in a coffee house and lovingly trash each other's work. I come home exhilerated, wanting to produce more. I look forward to it for the two weeks in between.

I've got The Novel to deal with, (now thoroughly demon-infested — the posse has adopted the Too Close to Home demon, and the Personal Transparency demon,) but I've set it aside in favor of getting a couple of other things finished. My self-esteem has suffered a lot over The Novel (it has a working title but I'm not totally comfortable with it yet) so I figured working on a short story where I'll get to write “The End” some time soon would be good for me. So my most recent submissions to the group have been two short stories — both of which remain incomplete (of course.)

“Most people can start a short story or a novel. If you're a writer, you can finish them. Finish enough of them, and you may be good enough to be publishable. Good luck.” – Neil Gaiman

Well, that explains a few things, doesn't it.

But the good news is that at least the second one seems to be working. My first drafts are clearly much, much better than they used to be — what a relief that is, to know that there's progress! My first drafts are looking the way my third drafts used to look. That feels good.

And working with such great people and great writers feels so good. It's really a bit miraculous — one of us started a Meetup group and the four of us showed up. We decided pretty quickly that we are a matched (or very complementarily mismatched) set and — in the 'if it ain't broke' spirit — shut down the Meetup group in favor of closing membership.

And they're gonna work the conference with me. Because they're just that awesome.

It feels good to be writing again. It feels good to be thinking about the conference.

It will feel really good to write “The End” on something soon.

More to come.

Cheers,

Cn.

So now it's time to do some spring cleaning, take out the metaphorical trash, and simplify. You know how it is when you go through a major change — it's hard to know where to focus, and sometimes too much energy gets put into things with zero return while other things fall through the cracks. And then there are consequences. Personal, financial, professional — it's all stuff that needs attention in appropriate amounts.

My friend Patrick pointed me to Getting Things Done by David Allen as the system that changed his life. It arrived today (in another Amazon book binge that also included The Glimmer Train Guide to Writing Fiction – Building Blocks, and A Bottomless Grave and Other Victorian Tales of Terror.) I'm only a chapter in and so far it makes perfect sense. Patrick also pointed me to Remember the Milk, a great (free!) tool which is proving very handy.

So. Ducks are still largely misaligned, and I have a couple of pressing deadlines now: End of March is when I need to have my income stabilized, and then the writers conference is coming up in June. I was |this| close to backing out but everyone in my writers group wants to volunteer, so I can't very well not do it, now, can I. :)

I'm working on a short story that has been languishing for some time; I was stuck again for a week but last night I kicked out a two page treatment that at least describes how to get from where it's at to the end. I'm hopeful. And then maybe I'll return to the novel. Or maybe not. It's still a Fiction Demon, for sure; but I figure as long as I'm working toward getting something finished I shouldn't beat myself up about it too much.

Happy thoughts to you and yours…

C