Susan Forest

Can’t think of a better way to spend a Friday evening — too dragged out from the week to write, but didn’t want to veg. Erika, Dave, Randy, Val, Kim and I were there as part of a packed house, and it was great fun. Thanks to Pages On Kensington for running stuff like this for authors — we are very lucky to have them (I bought a book, not only to support the authors, but to support Pages as well). The writers only read a little, but told stories about how the work came to be (which was relaxed and hilarious), and then a bunch of us went for drinks and late dinner after — it’s wonderful to network with other authors. Look on my blog roll for a link to Eileen’s website.

Susan

I’ve been recording ideas for a couple of weeks on my voice recorder that Don gave me for my birthday last year, and today I start. Next week is the IFWA writers retreat, and I hope to get most if not all of it done by then. Oh, and I’ll be reading at the Calgary Public Library (W.R. Castell Central Branch, downtown) on October 29. Should be fun! Halloween theme, and all.

Friday night kicked off with the IFWA talent show, ConVersion Cabaret. We had great acts — even Guest of Honor, Tanya Huff sang! The next morning, I was one of four judges for the Robin Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest, and all five of the finalists wrote marvellous stories, but top honours went to Erika Holt for a compelling fantasy story about a witch who loses her powers and is tempted to regain them by killing a street waif.

One of the best sessions I went to — at ANY convention — was one held Saturday afternoon with Tanya Huff, Rob Sawyer and Terry Brooks on the business of writing. Yes, the marketplace is tough, and one must always keep in mind that it is a commercial environment where the bottom line is the deciding factor. But despite the recession, people are getting published. The keys are: write the best damn story you can, and write for the market that loves you. Persist!

Here are pics:
Anna Bortolotto and Val King performing at ConVersion Cabaret on Friday night.
Katie Harse and Mike Gillett chatting about the day’s sessions at dinner.

The two days critiquing novel excerpts with Rob was, as always, fantastic. We had some really good writers with projects that I am sure will develop into fascinating books. We all got together for a barbecue at Robin Herrington’s parents’ house on the Wednesday evening and chatted until well into dark. Here’s a photo of Rob working with Val and Randy at the workshop.

It was a lovely weekend, and I got to re-read the entire novel, capturing little wording and plot snags and correcting them. Tomorrow it is off to my Kensington Writers’ Group for critique and I plan to take a Saturday or two off to get caught up on all the things I have been ducking as the novel came close to completion. I’ve already plotted the next book, and will start writing, probably during the Write-Off.

Ta-ta!

Thanks to Ron Friedman of my Imaginative Fiction Writers’ Association for compiling this partial list of eligible works for the Auroras — with the slant that all these writers are from Calgary (or were from Calgary or are good friends of Calgarians). Some to consider, at least:

Long-Form Works
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Sawyer, Robert J. IDENTITY THEFT AND OTHER STORIES (collection). Red Deer Press, May 2008
Trenholm, Hayden. DEFINING DIANA. Bundoran Press

Novelettes
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McCharles, Randy. “Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta.” Tesseracts Twelve, edited by Claude Lalumiere

Short Stories
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Forest, Susan J. “Back.” Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2008

Sawyer, Robert J. “Apple Will Own Margaret Atwood,” The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine, January 2008 (reprinted as “E-Mails from the Future” in Sawyer’s collection Identity Theft and Other Stories).

Trenholm, Hayden. “Love In its Season” On Spec #73, Summer 2008

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Other Non-CanadaSF eligible:

McCharles, Randy (fan achievement) for chairing World fantasy convention.
Jeff Campbell – for editing Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes

IFWA, my writers’ group, has a bi-yearly tradition of setting aside a weekend JUST for writing. It’s a poor-man’s writers’ retreat. As members, it’s free to us (and the group even buys us pizza for the Saturday night when we all read a little of what we have written so far). From 6 PM Friday to 5 PM Sunday, you can hear nothing but the clacking of keys — especially my daughter, Heather’s. I forget how many thousand words she wrote over the weekend, but the excerpt she read aloud on Saturday night was to die for. I am so proud of her!

I got no actual words written, but I went through all the notes I have been accumulating over the past few weeks and wrote plot outlines for 2 novels. Lots of thinking / problem solving involved, so even though I had most of it worked out ahead of time, I was pretty cooked by the end of the weekend. However, I’m ready to go!

THIS weekend, I work on chapter one of my new novel, and I get almost 2 full days to work on it because the ski season hasn’t (quite) started yet — have to keep the instrument tuned, you know: healthy and active — and because last Christmas, Heather gave me the best gift a writer can get: a weekend to write. She is doing all my chores for me this weekend, so I have nothing between me and my story.

I’m away this weekend, going to the Canadian Mountain Guides’ Ball (my sister is one of five female mountain guides in Canada) and taking a train trip through the Rocky Mountains with my husband – what a treat! Focusing back on short fiction, now. I have a story to be critqued by my writers’ group (IFWA) in early November and I just popped 3 stories in the mail last Sunday. I have 2 very cool short story ideas – hope to get to one of them (between social activities) this weekend. Vampires . . .

And full of writing and writer-related (and fan-related) fun. Saturday was the World Fantasy Barbecue and Brian Hades of Edge Press spoke about publishing. Though I arrived late (okay, the kids needed school supplies so we were out shopping in the morning) I was told that the speech was excellent. Food was great, and I picked up some classics as well as some new books I haven’t read yet at the raffle. In the evening, all the actors in IFWA Players got together to look at the footage of our play, Armageddon Idol, from last month. Looks like Anna will be intercutting the two cameras to create a DVD for us. Yay, Anna!

Today, though, is my writing day. I woke up with a fantastic idea yesterday, and 2 more plot bunnies have attacked me since.

Every year, my main writers’ group, IFWA (Imaginative Fiction Writer’s Association) runs a Clarion-style writing workshop for two days in conjunction with the local convention, often sharing a guest author with the con. In the past, we have had Edo Von Belkom, Mike Resnick, Joe Haldeman, Patrick and Honna Swensen, Rob Sawyer, James Allan Gardener, Dave Wolverton and Rebecca Bradley. Having the chance to work for two days in a small group (maximum twelve participants) with such stellar authors had been invaluable–not to mention the information about the business of writing that we have been able to pick up over lunch.

This year, our guest was Randy Schroeder who writes under a number of pen names (I have a collection of short stories, “Crooked Timber,” under the name, A. M. Arruin) as well as teaching Science Fiction at Mount Royal College. The two days were awesome. Each participant had a short story or novel submission (3 chapters and an outline) critiqued by the group. Randy grouped our stories to illustrate writing points and followed each story up with an exercise to practice the points covered. It was great. I got a real “aha” moment for my specific story, as well as picking up a number of points that I will want to mull over as I consider my writing.

We spent some time contrasting the processes of right and left brain writing, affirming the need for both and looking at ways of developing both craft and “godfire.” Of course, each writer has to develop her own self-awareness of what types of craft she needs to work on, and that self-understanding needs to change as her writing improves. One note I wrote from this workshop was, “once you reach a certain level of craft, the challenge you have to overcome is your own patterns and internal barriers.” To me, that said a lot. Craft can be developed systematically, and I feel my craft level has developed well. But godfire? How do you stimulate that? More difficult, but one way that Randy suggested (and on reflection I realized it is something I have found successful in the past–though I was never conscious of using it) is to set barriers for yourself. One he gave us, was “brainstorm how you might write a time travel story in which no one actually travels through time.” You get the idea.