Goal: Six stories or story-length novel snippets.

Accomplishment:

One 8,000 word story based on a premise that I've been kicking around for years. I thought it was going to be a novel, and it just wasn't. Now I'm not sure it's even a short story. Paul tells me it's good but I'm afraid it's kind of boring.

One 6,000 word story that came from a premise that hit me while having drinks and super-garlicky shrimp on the porch at Duke's, on the evening after the Locus Awards. A couple of weeks later, on July 4, the story was begging, pleading, demanding to be written. So I spent much of the fourth and fifth of July being antisocial while other people blew stuff up. This is the story that I think is the best in terms of pacing and emotional effect.

One 3,000 word story where I went out for a walk until I had a premise and then came back and started writing. Once I finished writing, I actually knew what the story was. So I think I have to go back and redo it from the beginning before I have a real first draft.

One 1,000 word story that I deliberately wanted to be a flash piece. I started writing without even a premise and kind of liked where it ended up, but I think it needs more sensory detail to really pop.

One 5,000 word story based on a premise that I have been kicking around forever. I think it's not a bad start, but the ending is really abrupt and it needs to be more rigorously thought-out in science fictional terms.

One bunch of words, notes, names, concepts, and associated other things that are closely related to being a story, but are not, in fact, a story. This is another idea that I've been kicking around for a long time, and each week of weeks 2-6 I would start out the week intending to write this story, and then at some point I would realize it just wasn't happening and I would write something else instead.

So, chief lesson learned: if the story isn't happening, it isn't happening. If a story isn't happening, but it might happen in the future, a week is probably not long enough to let it ferment before checking to see if it is ready to happen now. It's like making pickles. It'll never work if you keep opening the crock to check on its progress!

Other lesson learned: the constant attempt to write a short story, any short story, results in more short stories being written. Which seems kind of blindingly obvious, but there it is.

Thanks everyone for your support in this write-a-thon.

I am never going to be a world famous blogger. I know this. I've accepted it. Because when I get back from WorldCon at two in the morning and throw my luggage on the living room floor and think, "blast! I have to be at work in a mere seven hours!" I don't instantly hop onto my computer and write all about my experiences at WorldCon. I go to bed. And then, for several days afterward, whenever I think "huh, I should write about WorldCon or something" I get on the computer and read what somebody else wrote and shrug and say, "eh, I've got nothing new to contribute."

So, I just want to say, I had a really fabbo time. An amazing number of my lovely and talented Clarion West classmates were there, and since I am lazy I am going to link to Tina Connolly's roundup of the gang's websites and such: Clarion West 2006, of whom Tina, Tina, and Tina (actually Tina, Tinatsu, and Caroline), Meghan, Nicole, Ian (who just won Writers of the Future, the little scamp), David, Jim and Ben were all there! Whoop! Our takeover of the SF literary world is imminent!

I was on panels. One panel that I was on -- a Lovecraft panel -- was actually my favorite panel at the convention. What can you say about a panel with Charlie Stross, Ed Bryant, and Stephen H. Segal (the guy who revived Weird Tales), as well as Terrence Chua, a cool filker from Singapore? Yes, I know the phrase "cool filker" seems oxymoronic, but he writes Lovecraft-themed lyrics to ABBA tunes, which sounds cool even if you don't like filking. And he knew about Lovecraft, which was really the important thing.

Denver was hot and dry and the air usually smelled kind of weird, almost smoky. A brown smell, but without the sickly greenish tones of the air in California's Inland Empire. Then sometimes it would smell like rain, or herbs. With various groups I went to Pints Pub for some rather disappointing beer and some amazing Scotch, Wynkoop Brewing Company (which I will not link to due to the fact that their home page plays an annoying song) for some better than average beer and decent food, Bayou Bob's for some great Cajun food, to Los Cabos II for a Peruvian buffet (and I am still not linking to any websites that play annoying tunes when you visit, Google please take note), and failed utterly to go to the Santa Fe Tequila Company...twice! The first time I was with some people who went off in completely the wrong direction and couldn't find it until they pulled out the GPS. Then we did find it, and it wasn't open for lunch. The second time I was going to meet some people there, and I thought I could find it, because after all, I'd been there before

I had been there before, it's true. But I have no sense of direction, it is also true. So I took a wrong turn anyway, and got lost in a community college campus somehow, and found myself in a part of town that didn't look at all familiar right next to an amusement park that I'm pretty sure wasn't there before, and after an hour of trying to find the restaurant instead I found myself back in the downtown grid so I just took the free 16th Street Mall bus back to the hotel and pouted for a while.

When I'm alone and I get lost I completely turn into a five year old. I start crying. I become irrationally convinced that I am never ever ever going to find anything I recognize ever again. I have crossed over into some kind of Lynchian Land of Lostness and will be there forever, alone and helpless and confused. Even if I'd had the strength of will to take a taxi, I didn't actually see any in the part of town I was lost in... you know, there were taxis galore in the nice square downtown grid that I recognized and understood. But where I was lost? No taxis. Not that I like taking taxis. I don't trust taxi drivers except in London and New Orleans. Other places where I've taken taxis, the drivers don't seem to actually know where they're going. And who pays for them not knowing where they're going? You, the customer, that's who. Hardly seems fair. Also, if I'm taking a taxi because I'm lost, the last thing I need is to be just as lost, in a taxi, with the meter running. At least if I get lost on my own two feet, I know that back where I came from is theoretically walking distance. A taxi could manage to deposit me twenty miles away, still lost.

Sometimes I actually do ask for directions, if I see people who seem like they might be helpful.. Some cities I've been in, like New York or Glasgow, if somebody notices you looking confused, they will actually stop and offer directions even if you don't ask. These are densely populated cities, where if you are lost somebody else is likely to notice. Denver is not so densely populated. I didn't see a lot of people on the street outside of the downtown grid, and the ones I saw didn't look friendly. The people at the tram station looked kind of sullen and hostile, and the couple on campus that was sort of walking and making out at the same time... well, I didn't want to interrupt. Anyway, directions other than "it's back sort of that way" are useless to me. I can't follow verbal directions at all. Verbal directions require that you be able to hold a map in your head. If I could hold a map in my head, I wouldn't get so lost. What I need is not directions, but a map.

I really like maps. I find them endlessly fascinating. I think it's because they always seems like new information.