Gary Kloster

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.