Gary Kloster

Day three, and back to the workshop. Lots of talk about research today, where to find facts, what to do with them, how not to be too distracted by it. Because Wikipedia is the devil, sometimes. Then we were off to the library, to do some research for our 24 hour stories.

The Hollywood library was six or seven blocks from the Author Services building, so we walked. It was hot in LA that week- high 90’s and 100’s. We clung to the shade and scurried along, pale roaches who feared the scorching sun almost as much as we feared the sweaty masses of tourists that clogged the street. Finally the crowds thinned out as we got away from the touristy areas, trading the stars in the sidewalk for the lingerie stores in the store fronts. One of the last stars was Ray Bradburys- maybe the only sci-fi writer who has a star. I could research that, but… meh.

So a long walk, but it was entertaining. We got to talk to each other, and Tim Powers was giving a running commentary on Hollywood and how its changed over the years. Eventually, we reached the library, a little urban place that had a lot more movie posters in it than I was used to, but otherwise seemed pretty standard. There, I got to impress everyone with my amazing ability to find books. On the shelves. Yes, I have the Library use skill.

I spent my time stripping the shelves of mythologies. I was mulling an idea about a black market in mythical monsters, monsters caught in glass. I didn’t get much on monsters thought, and instead ended up reading about spirits and gods.

Then it was time to go, time to get lunch and make it back for the rest of the workshop. We had an hour and a half, no problem. You would think. Maybe having almost all of us descend on the same hapless restaurant at once wan’t such a good idea. About two and a half hours later, we finally made it back.

Then, we had to face it. The dark side of the workshop. The evil side. The stranger interview.

This is a part of the whole research idea. Y’know, chat with people, see how they talk, steal their lives and personalities to use as characters. Basic stuff. But talking to strangers? Seriously, I was told not to. By Grover. Besides, I’m an introvert. Anti-social. I thought these were good qualities for a writer. But we had to do it, so out we went.

Luckily, I had a plan. Hollywood is lined with all kinds of shops, including a bunch of tattoo parlors. So I went in, asking about getting a tattoo. I tried to be nice, told them I wasn’t getting any ink today, just that I was thinking about it. And I have thought about it. Vaguely. On occasion. Anyway, the first place was a wash- the guy barely said three words. The second place went fine though. Had a nice conversation about tattoos, how they’re done, how he liked working on Hollywood, etc. So after that I wandered around a little, made myself bug a few more people, and went back. I noticed that unlike lunch, everyone made it back early from this assignment.

Oh, the poor guy in the picture was one of many I saw all week hauling guitars around. I asked him what was up with that, and he told me that there was a school for becoming a studio musician a couple of blocks from the hotel. So there, I learned something.

Once we were back, we got a little more encouragement, and then the clock started. In 24 hours, we had to have a story.

So back to the hotel, and the work began. My basic plan- connect up some of the random thoughts I had, do some more research, stay up late and try to have a very rough draft done for the next day.

By about nine, I had my idea, my research was mostly done, and I was typing away. Slowly. Time for dinner. So I went down to the lobby, where Gra, Cheryl and Heather were hunched over their laptops in the posh lobby of our ritzy hotel. Ah, we were all such writing nerds. Anyway, Gra and Cheryl also needed food, so we hit the fancy burger bar in the hotel. Very good, giant burgers, and overpriced. Not so much the burgers, but four bucks for a coke? Really?

Anyway, back to work. I stayed up for awhile, got about a thousand words, then gave in for the night. I could finish the rough tomorrow. It’s not like I wouldn’t be getting up early. Whether I liked it or not.

So on Tuesday I woke up at 6:30. I didn’t want to wake up then, but I my body wasn’t offering choices. It was time to get up.

Did I mention that our room was over the pool? That has a bar in it. Where people talk loudly, and yell into their cell phones, late at night. Not a great nights sleep. So getting up early was not a welcome experience. But joy-of-joys, I was up, and that was the way it was the entire week. Well, I think I slept until seven one day.

So, workshop. It was in the Author Services building, in a nice space set out on the first floor. They had posters of all the covers of the previous WOTF books. I recognized my old ones, the ones I bought in high school. They also had treats, which was good. Sugar and caffeine were going to be my chemical buddies.

First thing was a tour of the Hubbard Library. Very pretty room with lots of books and art work from the pulp era. Off to one side was a little library dedicated to the contest. It contained all the books written by previous winners, and a lot of the magazines that had stories from same. Very impressive. I resolved to contaminate that room with my own creative leavings as soon as possible.

Then back to the workshop room, and advice from Tim Powers and K.D. Wentworth. Eager to hear what they said? Ha! You’ll have to win the contest for yourself to learn those dark secrets. And its worth it, too. The spell for cursing editors with incontinence, after they have had the temerity to suggest you learn at least a few grammar rules? Priceless.

Actually, I’m just lazy. Jordan took extensive notes and plans to post them at his site. Go check it out.

We also started setting up for the 24 hour story. An old WOTF tradition, this is an exercise meant to develop… something. Mostly I think it was to prove the point that you can crank stuff out, if you really want to, so stop being so damn lazy. Anyway, first part of this was the random object. K.D. gave each of us, hold on for this, a random object. This was suppose to be something that would inspire in us the seed of an idea for a story.

I got a paperweight. Or was it the protective dome over a futuristic city? The diamond cage of a strange, magical creature? A flower, encased in ice? Or a wishful glass ball, suitable for chucking at enemy heads?
Who knows? I took it back to the room to set on my nightstand, where it mocked me silently.

After the workshop, we all went out for Italian with Steve Saville. He was a winner six years back, who then turned around and wrote 26 books. Which is nuts. He was very cool, and it was great talking with him and getting to know the other members of my group.

We hung out for a bit after, then it was coma time. After I had piled a few pillows on top of my head to block out the noise from the pool.

Monday morning, we got up early. GW, Eldest daughter and I piled onto the bus in the dark and were whisked on our way to O’Hare. GW and the kid were going to be staying with some relative she had in the area, so once we dragged ourselves through security we split up. Miraculously, the flight was on time and went perfectly smoothly.

LAX was as I remembered it from the last time I had visited-crowded, grimey and strange. It reminded me of a Futureworld exhibit gone seedy. I kept expecting to see George Jetson sacked out in one of the chairs, looking ragged and complaining about treacherous domestic robots while sneaking sips from a flask. But I found the baggage area eventually and claimed my suitcase. Then the hunt was on for my ride.

I went out the door and wandered for a bit, struggling through the crowds of nicophiliacs and dazed travelers waiting for taxis. Luckily it wasn’t long until I saw the someone carrying a blue sign with ‘Writers of the Future’ on it. Emily was one of the Author Services reps who had the lovely task of tracking down and hauling in wandering contest winners.

She introduced me to Donald Mead, another winner who happened to be on the same flight I was on, but further ahead in the airplanes crumple zone. I also met Meliva, our photographer. I have to say, now, after the fact, I am thrilled with all the pictures she has sent me. (I’m using her pictures for these posts) I brought my camera but barely used it. At the time though, it was weird. I’m not used to someone following me around, taking pictures.

We piled into the van, and drove into Hollywood. At the hotel, we met Joni, the contest coordinator. She was very nice and helped us check in. Turns out Don and I were to be roommates, and so we got our keys and hauled ourselves up to the room.

The hotel was nice- one of those trendy places with cool photos and decorations, but dimly lit and oddly laid out, so you had the feeling you were in an art gallery designed by Clive Barker. But the room was nice, it overlooked the pool, and it had more closest space than my house.

Me and Don chatted, then went out looking for food. We ran into Jordan, another winner, and wandered up and down Hollywood talking and gawking. Food was acquired, and Jordan showed us the Blossom room, where the ceremony was to take place. Other than being chased out by hotel security (large men who would materialize at odd times throughout the week, giving you that hey, how you doin’ look), it was a nice afternoon. I passed out for a little while, then we headed down to the lobby to meet up with everyone else and our workshop instructors down in the lobby.

So here we were, finally, all the winners together. Except not really, as Cheryl, from the UK, wasn’t going to be arriving until 10. But close. And here was K.D. Wentworth and Tim Powers. Real, live authors. Good ones. Who would be teaching us. Very cool.

Jodi broke down our schedule, showed us around the hotel a little and pointed out the Author Services building (which was literally a block from the hotel) where we’d be having our workshop. Then we just hung out and talked. With Tim Powers and K.D. Wentworth. On Hollywood Boulevard. Which was all sorts of weird, but in a good way.

Me and Heather split off for awhile, grabbing dinner at a nearby mall/theatre thing attached to Grauman’s (yeah Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was across the street. That night they were doing the premiere of Halloween II. Did not see Rob Zombie, which was unfortunate. I would have invited him to the book signing.) Then it was back to the hotel, to hang out in the hospitality suite and talk with the other contest winners. Jordan introduced us to the game, Thing, which is played at cons and workshops and other fine geek venues. Finally, things wound down and I wandered off to bed.

Now that I’m done with the workshop–well done, since I am late as usual in actually putting this on the web–I’m putting up my take on it.

I’m going to start out with the pre-game. Me and GW decided that it would be best to leave the youngest at home for this. Traveling with a one year old is stressful on everyone, but especially the kid. So we left a few days early, headed down to Illinois and dropped her off at her grandparents for a week of spoiling.

Then on Monday, me, GW and eldest daughter got up way too early and headed out to O’Hare. Now, GW and the girl weren’t staying with me, though the contest said it would be possible. Instead, they were off to visit some relatives of GW who live in Orange County. So they were on a different flight, and after dragging our way through security we split up.

Then I hit the plane, and was off to Hollywood.

Yeah, yeah, unoriginal title.

A few hours free in the afternoon before the award ceremony tonight. Speech is written, probably not horrific. Now just the waiting.

I really hope I don’t fall down the stairs tonight. Although it might make me youtube famous.

So what is Writers of the Future? Aka WOTF? Easy answer is to head to their page or wiki it.

But here’s my short response. It’s a writing contest, for speculative fiction works. And it’s cool. Why? Because it’s been around for twenty-five years, it pays well, and it involves some of the best names in sci-fi and fantasy as judges and workshop instructors. And speaking of workshops…

That’s probably been my biggest interest in the contest. The money is nice, the pro sale is nice, and getting your story into an anthology that’s sold world-wide is fantastic. But on top of all that, you get to go to the workshop.

The week before the award ceremony (yeah, they have a fancy ceremony where you get dressed up and people clap and you get treated way better than you probably ever will be again as a writer) you spend a week at a workshop. Provided by the contest, usually with some cool pro like Tim Powers. And that kicks all sorts of ass.

Plus, you do it with all the other winners for the year. Like summer camp. But with laptops instead of S’mores.

When I was fourteen, I took my first stab at getting published.

I’m not one of these people that started compulsively writing when I was a kid. I made up stories all the time, but I was fairly content to let them play out in my head, a much more flexible space than the grammar cage of print on page. But I played with writing sometimes, and the idea of being an author (pronounced auteur) did wander through my career options tree at times. Along with president, astronaut, and ninja.

But in my early teens I came across a book that tempted me to try to actually take an idea, write it down, and send it in to a market. That book was the first volume of the Writers of the Future contest. A contest for beginning writers, and here they were, people who had written in and had their stories printed. And they got money, too. So I wrote something out, and sent it in.

My first rejection came a few months later. Very pretty, a certificate with the name of my story on it in calligraphy. Yeah, calligraphy. It was like one of those ribbons you got for losing the three legged race in play day at school. Sweet. So I sent in another, and got another certificate. Not to surprising really– even at that age, I had a pretty good idea that my stories were not, let us say, good. At all.

I didn’t write for a while after that. No crushing disappointment about my inadequacies, just busy with other things. My storytelling jones got fixed with gaming, and life went on. Then I became a stay at home dad.

Being trapped in a house with a two year old, alone, out in the country, and you start thinking. Thoughts about how you better find something to do with your brain, or it’s going to melt out of your head and all over the kitchen floor. Where you’ll have to clean it up, along with the spilled apple sauce and cat puke. So I started writing again.

After I knocked out a few short stories, I looked to see if the contest still existed. I checked online, didn’t find it and wasn’t surprised. It had been twenty years, after all. Then at a bookstore, I saw it, Writers of the Future Anthology 23, in the new book section. How the hell I had missed it on google I still don’t know, but when I checked online again, there it was. So I started sending things in.

Story one, a fantasy, bounced with an honorable mention. Which means they actually bothered to read it all the way through, and I got my name on their blog. Not calligraphy, but encouraging. Story two, sci-fi, made it to the critique round. Which means it almost got passed along to the final judges, but just missed. So as a consolation prize, I got a critique of the story. So I changed it around, posted it on Baen’s and changed it some more, and that one got bought. Meanwhile, story three was sent in. I was feeling good about this one. It was a good story, and I had progressed up a level with each earlier submission. Surely this one would make it in. And then I got the call.

I was a finalist. Fantastic. I remember talking on the phone, trying to figure out where I had placed. Then I realized I wasn’t done yet. Finalist just means that my story, and seven others, were going to the judges. Three stories from my group would be picked. I’d find out in a month. I gave my thanks, and that was the call. Then, the waiting began. Oh, the waiting.

When the month deadline hit, we were on vacation in a cabin in north Georgia (the state). I had actually bothered learning how to get messages off our answering machine remotely, just in case. I called the machine the day one month had passed. Hoping, hoping, hoping… first place, second, third, I didn’t care. I just wanted to be done with this, to have placed. And crap, there was a message, and I had won second. I called the number back, figuring no one would be there (late evening on a Sunday night) but there was, and I confirmed the details. I’d won! I was in! Second? Oh screw that, yeah!

So anyway, my first sale, and a check in the mail, and something to put on my cover letters. And a trip to California for a fancy ceremony, a chance to meet some great authors, and a workshop with the other winners from the year. Very excited. But… See, I had one the first quarter. Of the year. Which meant the workshop was, roughly a year and a half away. So, waiting, again.

Well, now it’s just about done. I’m getting ready to go to Hollywood– really, that’s where it is. So now I finally have some blogging material. I’ll talk more about the contest over the next few days. Then, after I’m done, I’ll talk about the workshop. If I survive…

(That’s just a dramatic hook. Yeah, I’m flying American, but I have that covered– I’ll bring my own lunch.)

Baen’s Universe is closing.

They announced it yesterday, in their new issue. I really liked Universe, and thought they had some good ideas on how to create a successful online magazine. Unfortunately, I guess I was wrong. So there goes another short story publisher.

I have faith that the short story market will survive. Hell, someday I think it will thrive. The web and e-readers seem to be made for it. I just wish (like a whole hell of a lot of other people) that I knew how.

Enough with the short stories. For a while at least. It’s time to move on to book two.

Not the sequel to the first novel I wrote- though I have a rough start on that and a decent outline, I’m leaving it alone. I like the idea, but it’s putting too many eggs in one basket when I have no offers on book one. So I’m moving on to something completely different.

As for the short’s, well I have thirteen different stories on the send list right now. Six sci-fi, four fantasy, and three horror. I’ll just keep bouncing them from market to market, hoping that one will hit hard enough to stick. Which should happen. Real soon.

Right?

Recently,  John Scalzi went after the big threes (F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog) no e-subs policy.  Read it here.

He has some good points, and I agree with a lot of them.  In fact I think it’s relatively certain that they will, at some point, change.  But the fact that they haven’t yet doesn’t really bug me.

Mailing in a story is a pain.  You buy your envelopes and stamps and binders, drive in to the post office, pay for that, all so you can wait around for a form letter telling you no thanks.  All annoying.  But the most annoying thing to me about the whole submission process is not the mechanics of sending out the story.  It’s the waiting.

I have stories that have been sitting at markets for over a year.  Other markets, markets that I love, reliably take three months to return a verdict.  I have stories that have been in circulation for two to three years now, and they haven’t actually been to all that many places.  The entire process is glacially slow.

But some markets are fast.  F&SF sends me its rejections usually in ten days.  Fourteen at the longest.  And that’s with the transit time.  Asimov’s and Analog aren’t that fast, but their pretty reliable about getting something back in a month.  They take longer if their mulling it, but that’s not so bad, at least their considering buying the thing and it’s not a six month wait for a simple rejection.  So while I’m not thrilled with doing the whole snail mail thing, F&SF almost always get’s the first crack at my stories.  Cause I know I’ll get my rejection quick, and I can move on.

Of course, some of the online places are starting to do even better.   Clarkesworld and Fantasy magazine are great- they have a slick e-sub system that takes your story, let’s you track where it is in the process, and keeps tabs on what you’ve already sent them.  And they turn stuff around fast.

Which means I’ll be sending to them first, when I have somthing that fits their guidelines.  And my guess is that so will a lot of other people, which will give those markets first crack at the wonderful gems that are buried in the slush pile (The slush is full of gems!  Really!).  And so their quality goes up, and more people will read them.  Which will put pressure on the other markets, including the big three, to set up similar systems.

At least, that’s what I’m hoping.