Odyssey Archives - Annie Bellet

Posts Tagged ‘Odyssey’

Reflections and Going Forward

I’ve now been writing full-time for over a year, technically. I say technically because this time last year, I’d just started graduate school, and it was eating my life while I sat confused and miserable wondering how something that had seemed like such a good idea at the time could go so wrong. In the end, I determined the program I was in wasn’t a good fit for me. I gave it a year, and thought about pushing through the final year. However, I wanted to know if I could actually get a decent amount of writing done without grad school, since my production while in it was pretty poor (about as bad as when I was working 70 hours a week, really).

So I quit. This summer was full of moving, vacations, family obligations, and Worldcon. Even so, in the last four months I’ve managed to write two short stories, get all 10 short stories currently on submission polished as best I’m able, and finish a novel. It’s not been the smoothest going, nor the easiest thing ever. There are days when the rejections stream in (today there were two more…) and everything I do feels like it’ll never amount to anything at all. I even start scanning the job listings wondering if anyone will hire someone who has been out of work a year and has two pretty useless degrees (unless you need some Anglo Saxon translated?).

Then something happens to remind me, to nudge me back onto the path. Some days it’s schadenfreude, I’ll be honest. I read a forum post, or a workshop story post, or I’m talking to someone, or occasionally see something in a magazine and think “god, that’s stupid/terrible/sad, I’m totally not that clueless/bad/pathetic.” Some days it’s seeing how far I’ve come, the days when I read over a line or a paragraph and think “hey, that kinda works, what I did there. I think I understand foreshadowing now!” Some days it’s other people like my first readers who read my stuff and tell me they like this or that, or that they can really see improvement. And some days, the best days, it’s the writing itself, when it grabs me by the brains and I race along the story with every piece falling into place like a master level Go game on fast forward.

And looking ahead, I think I can keep going. I’ve got a novel done, and three people have already finished reading it for me, with two more due to finish in the next week or two. They’re compiling lots of information and commentary for me to sift through so I can make it the best it can be. And reading about the market right now, I’m sort of happy I decided to work on this novel, which is a fantasy with pretty strong romantic elements, instead of trying to finish Casimir Hypogean. Debut science fiction seems like it’s a tough sell right now, so breaking in with a fantasy novel might be easier. Of course, there’s no way to know if Chwedl will even sell. But I’m glad I’m making this the first effort the world might see and saving the more complex stuff for later.

Novel project 2 will have to start in a couple months, as soon as Chwedl’s query is out the door to agents. I’m not sure what to do. Part of me really wants to finish Casimir Hypogean to polished draft and then do roughs of the other two novels in the series just so I have them done enough that if by some chance the first sells, I won’t be coming back years later and tackling that world cold. However, while I think the novels have great potential, I think in some ways the steampunk mysteries I want to write might be an easier pitch. Local alternate history, alchemy, airships, murder, clockwork cats, and quirky characters? I mean, how can I lose? The Casimir story is in my head right now, however. It’s been coalescing for a few years now, ever since I wrote that terrible rough draft. I’m not sure how the third book ends, but I know how the second one goes, and how the third begins. I figure by the time I get there, it’ll be clear how it has to go. The steampunk book will take a lot of research, the Casimir books almost none (and what research there is I can keep doing as I go).

So I have some thinking to do. Meanwhile, I’ve been researching and doing rough quasi-outlines/notes for stories for my crazy short story month plans. It’s definitely time to start thinking about the workshop applications too. I want to apply early this year to all of them, get it out of the way. In some ways, I’m stressing about it more this year than I was last. Last year I really wanted to go, but it was mostly because I wanted to work with the people at CW. This year, I want to go for me. I think that either the Clarions or Odyssey could help push my writing to the next level. I’m clearly on the threshold, if my “nice” rejection stack means anything. I want to get past the personal rejections and make a sale, to write the kinds of stories that editors can’t put down. I think the workshops could help with this, could help me find out what I need to learn or practice to get closer to where I want to be as a writer.

I’ll likely be posting very boring somewhat daily updates during November about my short story mission. Stay tuned for the crazy!

Worldcon Report (of a sort)

and then I’m getting back to writing about writing, I swear *grin*

I got home from Worldcon with the flu, so I’ve been medicated out of my head and curled up with a fever and racking cough this whole last week. It has especially sucked because one of the good things to come out of Worldcon was that I came home with ideas leaping out of everywhere for all of my current projects and some totally new ones. I feel like I just lost a week of my life, thanks flu!

One of the things I meant to do right when I got home was give a more in-depth report on Worldcon. But there are con reports out there and it’s been a week anyway, so I’m just going to mention a few thoughts and highlights.

The workshop was well-run and while I won’t say it was a bucket of fun, I found it informative and helpful. This was the third time I’ve workshopped Space Bones (and the third form the story has been in), and this workshop liked it the least over all, though I’ve read through comments on the drafts that were handed to me and there are some nice comments that no one bothered to say aloud in the workshop, which is ok but did give the impression that it was universally panned when it wasn’t exactly. However, I think that this story has reached the point where I need to shelve it or rip its guts out and try something a little different. I know the story I’m trying to tell. I read over the comments and my notes and I see that the story I want to tell is getting lost somewhere in this version. I like this story too much to give up on it, and besides, it got a very near miss with one editor, so it can’t be that far off something *someone* would like to read. I have some ideas on how to change/fix it, so we’ll see if I can make it work better. I found the level of crit in the workshop on par with Baen’s, blunt but understandable/helpful on a whole. Plus it was good to get to talk to people and meet them without having to introduce myself to strangers. Context is a good thing.

Another highlight of the con was meeting a bunch of local Portland writers. A bit funny that I haven’t met a single local writer until I went thousands of miles away, but oh well, I’d have to probably leave my house and put up with that whole introducing myself to strangers thing more often. I have new blogs to follow and hopefully a few local connections for people to chat about writing (or whatever) with. I also connected with some of the not-local to me writers whose blogs I follow, though that involved a fair bit of stranger talking to, but I held it together, mostly (I think a couple people caught me on the zomg 1am oversocialized talky edge of things, heh…sorry).

Some of the most fun panels I went to were the Odyssey, Clarion, and Anti-workshop panels. I mention them here because in some ways I’m glad I didn’t get into CW this year (sniff). I’m much better informed now about what the different workshops entail and what might be the best fit for me. The Odyssey grads were especially helpful in this, and I think it’s moved to the top of my list for next year (pending what the instructor list for Clarion SD looks like, of course…). Not that I won’t apply to all three, but I’m thinking of seeing if I can get early acceptance to Odyssey since they do that. Of course, after my sound rejection from CW, who knows if I’ll get into anything next year, but I’ve been working my ass off to try to improve and getting the “almosts” to prove it. Hope and Spring and all that. Oh, funny thing about the Anti-workshop panel and the Clarions panel, they almost ended up being opposites. The Clarion grads all admonished people to be sure they knew what they were getting themselves into, while the anti-workshop (really, the hey you can do it without a workshop panel) ended up agreeing that it can be really helpful. Go figure.

This leads up to the strongest message I took away from Worldcon after listening to countless professional writers and editors. Everyone gets there on their own path. No ones methods look the same, no one followed some careful formula for success (well, other than work hard and write a good story), no path to publication or agent or finished drafts look the same. Which was comforting, because sometimes I feel like I’m diving in face first and hoping thats water down there.

Over all, I’m glad I went (flu notwithstanding). Now, back to real life. I need to revise my list of things to do and add in the new ideas/plans. It’s about time for another “things to get written” post, so I’ll work on that for sometime this week. First, however, I need to reread a few chapters of Chwedl so I know what I was thinking when I quit (has it really been a month since I worked on it? Eek. Momentum loss, anyone?) and then start the writing. And maybe do something with the stack of hotel stationary I scribbled all over in Montreal.