2011 Westies Anthologized

My Clarion West classmates have had a pretty rockin year so far with stories in anthologies and collections. If you are looking for some good short stories to read, I highly recommend checking these out.

First up is S.L. Gilbow's new short story collection. I've been waiting for Gilbow to put out a collection of his own ever since I met him. His stories are amazing. They're the kind that pull you in so close that they silence a loud room, and grip you so tightly that you ache for days. Elegant with a feeling of the best classic science fiction, these are stories that you'll remember and want to share with others. There are five stories in this collection, each one beautifully crafted. I hope one day there's a print edition, so that I can add Gilbow to my shelves with my other favorite authors. You can get your copy here.

Next up is an anthology with two of my classmates' stories: Corinne Duyvis' Week 6 story at Clarion West, "The Applause of Others," and "Fisheye" by Maria Romasco-Moore. Corinne's story is set in Amsterdam, full of lovely city details. If you haven't read a story by Maria Romasco-Moore yet, you are missing out on some of the most beautiful and delightfully, wittily weird writing. In addition to Corinne and Maria's stories, the line up is stellar. Check out the Table of Contents and then maybe get a copy. 

Jei D. Marcade's story "Superhero Girl" is out in bookstores (like Barnes & Noble and such) in the anthology Super Heroes. Read this cool interview with Jei about the story that was originally published in Fantasy Magazine and learn the word for the storytelling technique you've probably been trying to pull off for years. Jei uses it seamlessly in this story. It is, in my mind, the textbook example (in addition to just being an all-around amazing story.) Go Jei! 

Alisa Alering was a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest this year. Her story "Everything You Have Seen" is in the newest compilation (Volume 29), out everywhere! This is a gorgeous, haunting story told in the lyric-crisp language that I love in all of Alisa's stories. At the awards ceremony, dancers interpreted the story, in what I think was the best performance of the evening. Read her awesome story, then head over to her blog where she's recounting the WOTF winner experience. 

The rest of my Westie friends are doing amazing things - managing magazines, starting novels, finishing novels, publishing short stories in magazines all over the place. I'll do another check-in soon with some cool story pubs in journals and magazines. Go CAAMF! :) 

My First Fountain Pen

I've always loved stationary. From the faded Santa set my sixth grade teacher gave me to the Elk themed letter set I found at a thrift store in Alaska, I'm a sucker for cool correspondence materials. But my idea of splurging on nice pens is buying a pack of three Sarasas from the grocery store. I've never owned a fountain pen, or even tried writing with one. So getting one as a present from my dad was pretty wonderful. 

Here's a few photos of my new pen, with the fancy schmancy backdrop of a Totoro blanket: 

A pen that comes in its own classy bag - already this is awesome.

Different shades of blue for the packaging. Lovely.

The whole set, including a package of ink capsules and a bottle of ink. 

The pen! Gorgeous and simple. 

Engraved nib

I'm still getting used to writing with it. The pressure points on certain parts of letters - the curves of an 'e' for example - are different from regular pens. And my fancy stationary isn't porous enough to use with the fountain pen. The ink shows up faint and smeared. But other cards and papers are perfect.

I really love my new pen. I kind of feel as if I've had a trip to Ollivanders Wand Shop.  

The Model Enterprise

My friend Go Thou Geekly moved recently, and before he left he gave me an amazing rocket model set. I was really excited because I knew instantly what I wanted to do with the set - build it with my dad when he came to visit. 

My dad was only in town for ten days. We spent some of the time taking care of logistic issues - just the usual life paperwork that builds up - and I had to go to work everyday. So we wanted to hang out together in the evenings as much as we could, but since I haven't seen him in a year we didn't want to spend that time watching movies or television. We wanted to actively hangout. 

If you've never built a model set with someone, I just want to say that it is a great project to embark on with a friend. I was lucky in that my dad built models when he was a kid, so he knew all kinds of awesome tricks like soaking the decals in water so that they slid off onto the model and adhered as if they'd been stamped there. 

But even if you've never built a model before, it's a cool crafty project to undertake. And in the end, you're left with a unique reminder of the time you spent with that person or, if you build it alone, that time in your life. I think I'll always remember working on the shuttle model with my dad, taking a break to explain to him what a meme is, or for him to show me how to tape the edges of a wing so that our paint would be in a straight line. 

Here's some progress shots of us building the space shuttle together:

Fresh out of the box - the moving pad and booster rockets

Doing a test of how everything will come together once it is painted

I was given the task of taping the model before we painted.
In this pic, we painted the portion below the yellow tape black.

In progress shot.
 The tupperware container is full of water for soaking the decals.

I was pretty proud of how clear the lines are on this wing due to my taping the edges.
There's still some rough bits, but  it was immensely satisfying to transform a piece of
plain white plastic into a recognizable piece of the shuttle. 

The end result! The glue needed to dry before it would stand
upright on the pad, but it looked pretty spiffy. 

Go Team Moody! 

What Dancing Taught Me About Writing

I began taking dance lessons in the second year of my MFA program. When I was a kid, I'd done the usual run of ballet and tap, ending when I was around ten. I loved dancing, but I felt like I wasn't really allowed to do it because of my body. The form-fitting leotards, the tights, the bare arms, and the jumping. It was a form of dance that always made me feel heavy, even though when I look back at those photographs I can see I wasn't even chubby. I was a normal kid.

I stopped taking ballet, but I never stopped dancing. In undergrad, it was at dance parties at the International Student house or impromptu living room dancing with a group of friends after a night out. I thought I'd never take dancing lessons again, that I could never study dancing like I studied writing. I could only enjoy it for the moments when it came my way.

The second year of my MFA program was tough. Looking back, I'm amazed at how much I learned, how much the literature classes helped me in my writing. But back then I felt overwhelmed and blocked. I hated my stories. I compared myself daily to my classmates, the published writers we studied in class, and found myself always coming up short.

I needed to get off the campus. I needed to do acts of creation that were in the body instead of on the paper, ones that could live and exist and fade without hovering in a state of editing limbo. One day I stopped at the bulletin board in the library and saw a flyer for a tribal bellydancing class. I showed up the next week.

My teacher was Joyce Young. She's my belly mom. She's an amazingly talented and hardworking dancer, and if you happen to pass through Fairbanks, Alaska go and take some classes from her. Joyce made dancing fun for me again.

The Moment's Performance

This is what bellydancing taught me: to focus on the performance of the moment. To hold it, then let it go.

If, during practice, we messed up - cued a move incorrectly, made a four-count move into a six - we were told not to make a face. We were not to call out "sorry!", and definitely not to stop dancing. After the song ended we could ask questions, go through the movements again, drill a move until our hips and arms were threaded together by memory.

But in the space of the dance, we lived in the moment of creation.

I am trying to bring this to my writing, to lock the editor outside my bedroom door and turn the music up so loud that I can't hear his voice at the hinges. And then, dance.

***

Here's one of my favorite ATS bellydance sets of all time, performed by Devyani Dance Company and Out of the Darj.

Walks at Clarion West

Unless you bring a car to Clarion West, you'll probably do a lot of walking. Walk to buy groceries, go out to eat, go to the Tuesday readings, and just to get out of the house and mull over story ideas. 

The weather in Seattle in the summer is wonderful. Perfect for long walks. And there are sidewalks everywhere. Not the kind of sidewalks where a tiny bit of paved walkway is so close to the busy street that it isn't safe. Big sidewalks. And if you take the residential route down to the shopping areas, it's peppered with sculptural trees, 

bordered by beautiful houses, 

garnished with lovely bits of strangeness. 

I always took the residential route when going down to eat at Wayward Vegan Cafe. The roads were quieter (except for the one frat house that had a pool and basketball court in the front yard) and the walking helped me decompress after the morning crit sessions.

Walking every day became part of my writing routine, and when I came home from Clarion West I threaded it into my life. The workshop had an overwhelmingly positive impact on my writing, but it also yielded some unexpected benefits, like a healthy walking habit.  

The deadline to apply to the 2013 Clarion West Writers Workshop is March 1st. If you're thinking of applying, I'd like to give you a friendly nudge. (Do it! Apply!! APPLY!!)

This workshop is amazing. You'll come out the other side with so many writing friends, at least 5 new stories, a better understanding of your style, a good idea of your weaknesses and how to work on them, and the drive to keep on writing. Or at least, that's a few of the things Clarion West gave to me.

The deadline is this Friday - go here and submit your best writing. Good luck!

TOC: Missing Links and Secret Histories

L. Timmel Duchamp recently emailed the table of contents for the upcoming anthology Missing Links and Secret Histories. I'm excited to have one of my stories included, and can't wait to see how so many excellent authors worked with the concept of a secret history for a literary character. Timmi gave us permission to share the TOC, so here it is! 

Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries Lost, Suppressed, or Misplaced in Time

ed. L. Timmel Duchamp

1.  Kristin King: Mystery of the Missing Mothers

2.  Nisi Shawl: The Five Petals of Thought

3.   Jeremy Sim: Thaddeus P. Reeder

4.   Nick Tramdack: The Gimmerton Theory

5.   Alisa Alering: Madeline Usher Usher

6.   Mark Rich: Maisie and Amomma

7.   John J. Coyne: The Kurtz-Moreau Syndicate

8.   Mark Rich: Dejah Thoris

9.   Anna Tambour: Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard

10. Alex Dally MacFarlane: Gerayis (or Gedayis)

11. Kristin King: The Galadriel Apocrypha

12. Mari Ness: The Godmother

13. Mari Ness: Marmalette

14. Mari Ness: Palatina

15. Catherine Krahe: The Blacksmith

16. Jenni Moody: Peter Rabbit

17. Anne Toole: Secrets of Flatland

18. Jeremy Sim: Sanyo TM-300 Home-Use Time Machine

19. L. Timmel Duchamp: Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett

20. Anna Tambour: God

21. Lucy Sussex: La Cucaracha Rules

Staying Sane

Two weeks ago life came to a full stop. For two days during the weekend, I was by myself with no means of transportation. I hadn't planned to take that kind of break from life. I was going to distract myself with movies at the theater and family, but my family was busy, bad weather shortened our time together, and I wasn't able to drive to the movie theater. I was stuck with myself and my two cats and an empty-feeling apartment.

You know in cartoons when someone is running really fast and they don't realize they're headed for the edge of a ravine until they're right up on it? Then when they put on the breaks they keep skidding a little until their toes are curling over the edge? That's what that weekend and the week after felt like. 

In the middle of the weekend, I started reading a book that my boyfriend had checked out of the library, Philippa Perry's How to Stay Sane. Kismet, maybe. It was the book I needed during that long weekend. 

It's a slim, easy to read book that feels much more like a gentle conversation than a condescending how-to book. 

There were two exercises that I've heard before, but Perry convinced me to try again. I think they've been really helpful for me as I try to strike a new balance between my writing life, my work life, and my personal life. 

1. Keeping a Diary

Sometimes I feel like all writing has to be productive writing. If I'm going to spend half an hour writing, shouldn't I spend that time revising a short story or working on a novel? But Perry makes an excellent case for the benefits of keeping a daily journal, including a longer life. I've been writing in a journal for the last two weeks. Not every day, but most days. And I cannot tell you how much it helps to rearrange my brain so that there's nothing left on my shoulders for the next day. 

I have to make sure I don't leave the journal writing to the last minute, however. Journal writing in bed right before going to sleep leaves me with half-hearted scrawls on paper and waking up ten minutes later with a pen still in my hand. Journal writing fits, for me, into that awkward night space where I start to worry about the next day. Filling this time with journal writing helps me focus, keep positive, and use the rest of my evening time well. 

2. Circles of Increasing Challenges

The other exercise I found most helpful in this book is to draw a diagram of your personal boundaries and work on pushing through them one level at a time. An easy example of this is social interaction. In the center circle, you would write what kinds of social interaction are 100% ok with you. Like, staying at home watching Star Trek with your SO. Around that circle, you would draw a larger one, with interactions that are still doable, but maybe a little bit less comfortable, like going to a group event for a few hours. The idea of this exercise is to keep drawing larger rings around the original circle, filling each level with boundaries you would like to push past. Perry urges you to keep checking on your progress, pushing yourself bit by bit past your comfort zone, so that the leap to the person you want to be is instead a series of small steps. 

Perry also states that being mindful of pushing your boundaries is important to avoid slipping back into your shell of comfortable habits. Last year I made interacting with fellow writers and geeks regularly part of my writing goals, and I attended more events than I normally would have. I strengthened friendships, met new people, and was more productive as a writer. This year I didn't include those interactions in my goals, thinking that I'd naturally keep up those habits. But they've fallen by the wayside, and I'm revising my goals to include conventions and crit groups both local and out of state this year.

There are many more exercises and great examples in this book, and I would highly recommend reading it, especially to writers. Not only for developing needs and obstacles for characters, but for working through your own as well.

Do you have favorite resources or personal exercises for staying sane as a writer? How do you balance writerly needs and ambitions with everyday life?