Sketchbook, summer 1993.

Each year, the Clarion science fiction writing workshop hosts an online "write-a-thon" to raise funds that will support this important program for the next generation of speculative fiction authors, and this year's six-week effort kicks off on June 23. I've been a participant for several years, am proud to have been able to pay something forward for the outstanding experience I had. You can sponsor me as a writer here, or make a contribution to the Clarion Foundation. It's all tax deductible, and it supports this vital program.

In honor of our class's 20th anniversary (which hardly seems possible!), I'll be counting down and posting snippets from my 1993 writing sketchbook, day by day, which may be of most interest to fellow Clarionoids, but which will hopefully be marginally entertaining (and encourage you to sponsor me). So, here we go:

June 2, 1993:

"The sky outside the port was the color of Dan Rather's face, beaten to a bloody boneless pulp to learn the frequency."

Echolalia. See: echolalia. (See: echolalia).

"We always thought we knew the difference between dirt and viruses." - an evil virologist

An alternate history of TV?

It is the function of culture to imprint facticity. To make you aware of the Real and to dismiss the possibility of anything different -- ever -- having existed. This is what I'm struggling with as a writer. To be true to those aspects of the Real which are significant, but to mutate those which either repress, or mask, their mutability. Per mutandae ad esse.

That last bit -- yeah, that ended up nearly verbatim in the first story I wrote at Clarion a month later. This is why I always advise aspiring writers to keep a notebook handy.

Clarion Write-a-Thon

The annual Write-A-Thon to benefit the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy writing workshop wraps up tomorrow, and I'm proud to say that with the help of my my awesome sponsors — Wylie Goodman, Charity Shea, Karen Blocher, Bill Bly, and Adam Chinitz — we raised $320 for this very worthy effort.

I matched their donations dollar-for-dollar, and spent the last six weeks cranking text alongside the participants in this year's workshop. While I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped (unlike the cloistered dormitory sweatbox of Clarion, I had to fit five out of the six weeks of writing in around my day job) I did finish a solid draft of the first three chapters of my novel-in-progress, Fist of the Ape.

Regular readers will know that I am deeply indebted to Clarion. The six weeks I spent there in 1993 literally changed the direction of my life, and I came away from the experience with the knowledge and tools to write at a professional level. I sold two of the stories I wrote there, and, 18 years later, am still workshopping with several of my classmates.

So you can expect to find characters in this book named like Wylie, Charity, Karen, Bill, and Adam. :)

I thank you, and the future writers — and readers — of speculative fiction thank you as well. Arigato gozaimashita.

Click to find out more about the Clarion Write-a-Thon.

Starting today, June 26, and for the next six weeks, I will be writing along with the participants in the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy writing workshop, and if you're a regular reader, or a fan of the science fiction genre, I hope you'll consider sponsoring me in the second annual Clarion "Write-a-Thon."

Like all *-a-thons, the goal is to raise money to support the Clarion workshop which, every year, brings a group of budding authors together with established pros for six weeks of intense work on the craft and business of being a science fiction writer. Like most educational programs these days, it always needs financial help.

So, to do my part, I'm committing to crank out the final 30K words of my novel-in-progress, Fist of the Ape. And if you'd like to support me — really, support all the fantasy and science fiction writers who benefit from Clarion — you can make a donation on my Write-a-Thon page.

I'll be posting progress updates here and will tweet snippets under #writeathon.

Good luck to all this year's participants at the workshop. Can't wait to see the amazing things you write!

Resources
Clarion web site
Follow @ClarionUCSD on Twitter
Like Clarion on Facebook

Click to find out more about the Clarion Write-a-Thon.

Regular readers will know that I am deeply indebted to the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy writing workshop, and this summer, I'm going to try to pay that forward, and you can help. From June 26 to August 6, I'll be writing like mad, just like the students in this year's workshop, and I'm looking for people to sponsor me in the second annual Clarion "Write-a-Thon."

Like all *-a-thons, the goal is to raise money to support the Clarion workshop which, every year, brings a group of budding authors together with established pros for six weeks of intense work on the craft and business of being a science fiction writer. Like most educational programs these days, it always needs financial help.

So, to do my part, I'm committing to crank out the final 30K words of my novel-in-progress, Fist of the Ape. And if you'd like to support me — really, support all the fantasy and science fiction writers who benefit from Clarion — you can make a donation on my Write-a-Thon page.

I know it's a long way to June. Don't worry. I'll be sure to remind you :)

Resources
Clarion web site
Follow @ClarionUCSD on Twitter
Like Clarion on Facebook

If you're someone involved in writing science fiction or fantasy, you've probably heard of, and perhaps considered, the Clarion workshop, and this year's deadline is coming up on March 1.

The six-week workshop at UC San Diego runs from June 26-Aug 6 this year, and, as always, the lineup of writers-in-residence is absolutely stellar: Nina Kiriki Hoffman, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, David Anthony Durham, John Kessel, and Kij Johnson. You'll spend your time immersed in the craft: writing, reading, critiquing, soaking up tacit knowledge, and building life-long connections.

Of course I'm biased, since I'm a Clarion grad (1993), but it is, quite literally, a transformative experience for a speculative fiction writer. Unless you are spectacularly lucky, you will never again have the opportunity to focus entirely on writing for such an extended period of time, in the company of such amazingly talented peers and coaches.

Clarion is not easy: writing a story a week is bloody hard work. The feedback evenings can be frightening, devastating, and exhilarating, sometimes all in the same session. And living as a writer, with writers, for six weeks can be a pressure cooker. Of the metamorphic variety.

It ain't always fun. But it will teach you things that cannot be learned any other way, things that will be invaluable in your writing career.

I sold two of the stories I wrote there, one of which won the Theodore Sturgeon Award; many folks from our group made pro sales.A bunch of our classmates are still friends, almost twenty years later, and several of us still get together to workshop every year.

If you're thinking about it, why not apply this year.

Not a writer? You can still support the future of speculative fiction by making a donation to the Clarion Foundation.

Editorial note: If you've been wondering why I haven't been covering Portsmouth stuff, I'm a bit under the weather. Literally. I did something to my back shoveling a week ago. I hate sounding like a whiny blogger, but people asked.