Science Fiction Writers Workshop

Ah. It's Monday. This means I'm motivated to post some virtual drivel on the net. Or it means, since I'm also chatting with this group at the time, that I sneak out every few moments to write something in this space. Is this what they call multitasking? But I'm not really doing this simultaneously. Hmmm.

Had a bit of a rough week. Had a business deal implode three days too late, which means I also lost my previous job--which is the reason I came to MI in the first place. Oh to look for work. Ucky. (which by the way is one of my new favorites words). To be more specific, my wife and I gave a proposal, which the current business owners took to their advisors. They returned with only a few minor conditions to agree to. Now, I never thought the deal was "solid" but I did think it was about 90% good. We were on our way to writing a contract. Meanwhile, my old job boss needed to know whether I was staying or leaving, and after waiting to the last possible moment, I had to say leaving. Well, big surprise after going out on a limb, the branch snapped--the owners came back from drafting a contract with their advisors and suddenly wanted twice what they had agreed upon for an initial downpayment. Needless to say, that was not going to happen, out trust was broken, and my wife and I had to move on. Sadly, she too has just quit her job, but for reasons unrelated to this business deal gone bad. Oh well. Crap happens and all those cliches.

It's about that time I feel guilty and decide to write something. I'm not really sure why. No one else does, so it's a one writer show, but I somehow get something out of this or else I wouldn't continue to pester this virutal environment.

Got a couple of rejections recently--not unusual as I have a significant quantity of work on the market--however, these particualar ones are the most frustrating. One said, "Send another soon!" Another one was a generic form letter that then had four or five pen written lines praising the work, eager to read anything else near completion, yet a rejection all the same. Unfortunately, I have nothing else appropriate to send along or I would. These words of encouragement are certainly heartfelt and nice, but goll darn if they aren't frustrating as heck. I almost prefer a form letter--at least those I don't give a second thought about. I don't know.

Another Monday. Which means another convenient time to blog. I'm quite surprised to have completed more than two of these.

I attended a children's lit conference this past Friday. One of the speakers, who filled a vacant slot left by another speaker who had multiple family deaths, was fantastic: Virgina Euwer Wolff. A really modest, experienced woman, and she plays the violin. Haven't read any of her books, yet, but I will. The second children's author, Sonia Sommes gets a big thumbs down--very high maintenance and haughty. Don't plan to support any of her writing, though many sing its praises. Also heard from some independent graffic novel artists. Learned much about that business, and bought their creative books to support the little guy.

So I was going to tell some amusing anecdote that relates to the title of this post, but that amusing anecdote does not exist. Yes, that's right, I was going to LIE. I had no amusing anecdote about riding the bus. Welcome to the wonderful world of fiction--convincing people what's written on the page is real--even if it takes place on an asteroid or worse than that, on a bus.

I'm kidding. I like busses. And trains. I suppose I like asteroids, especially if they are used for story purposes (except for crashing into planets as that's been done a zillion times and just thinking about Deep Impact or Armageddon makes little pink pygmys dance around my forehead.

Let's try this again, a second entry. See, I told you I wasn't very good at this. It's been a few weeks already. My blog future doesn't look bright, especially when I'm trying to revise a book, write a story for a critique deadline, and buy a business...

Not much writing to report. Been pecking at Mercury Rising (working title) my second GenE story. It's going to be significantly longer than my first GenE story. It doesn't seem to want to come out of me yet, but maybe I haven't tried hard enough. Lots of other things occupying my thoughts and I don't write well when my mind is focused on sixty other things.

I don't do this whole blog thing very often. I just find that my time is better placed else where. If I'm going to write, I might as well be writing the fiction or nonfiction stories and articles that are the basis for my so called writing endeavors.

Yet, here I'll try, in context of this group site, and we'll see what happens, if anything.

I gave my weekend to a symphony concert. 6 hours each day, plus 3 hours on Friday, plus travel time. Plus the practice time for all the brutal Tchaikovsky. My writing time withered, but it was certainly worth it, and it was a paying gig, so no real complaints, except fot the loss of time, which I guess is a complaint, so just one complaint, but, in the end, it was worth it. So, no complaints, really this time.