Inhuman Swill

Over in her journal, sallytuppence posed this question: "I'd like to hear, either in comments or linked to an entry in your blog, about how you started writing. I don't want to hear that you were a writer ever since you could hold a crayon in your chubby little hand, no. I want to hear about how you got serious as a writer. What catalyzed it? When did you start thinking of yourself as a writer?"

Though I've talked about some of this before, I thought I'd repost my answer here:

( Who gave me the crayons? )

Though I've been involved with local writers' group on and off in the time since, I hadn't attended a formal away-from-home writing workshop for nearly 21 years—well over half a lifetime, and all of my professional writing career. So it was with excitement and some trepidation early this year that I accepted Charles Coleman Finlay's invitation to attend Blue Heaven 2006 on Kelleys Island, off the Ohio shore of Lake Erie.

Excitement because this would be a peer workshop focusing on SF and fantasy novels, and I was having definite trouble transitioning from short fiction to longer work. And also because I'd be hanging out with some first-rate writers and rising stars.

Trepidation because, for all that I sometimes get worked up online and probably don't come across as bashful, I'm fairly reserved in person and don't usually say much in a new group until I'm comfortable, if then. And also because I'd be hanging out with some first-rate writers and rising stars.

( Into Himmelblau House )

Of course, there was more to Blue Heaven than just work. I doubt the group's yin would have functioned as well as it did without the yang of the camaraderie we found outside the workshop sessions. But I've gone on long enough for now, and for that I'll have to make another post later.

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Brenda Cooper posts a group picture here. Left to right:
Back row: William Shunn, Paul Melko, Tobias S. Buckell, Greg van Eekhout, Tim Pratt
Second row: Sandra McDonald, Mary Turzillo, Brenda Cooper, Catherine M. Morrison, Sarah Prineas
Front: Charles Coleman Finlay
Far Right Background: Sela the Amazing Rock-Fetching Canine

It's WING NIGHT at the Village Pump, sort of a happy hour for chicken wings, 4 to 6. I could get used to this kind of living. Beer, wings, and internet.

Oh, yeah. And the critiquing of novels is very good, helpful, and educational.

But boy. Beer, wings, and internet. Yeah.

So tomorrow afternoon I fly out to Ohio for eight days of novel-critiquin' good times. This space will likely be pretty silent in the meantime. Looking forward to it, ccfinlay! (And all you other Blue Heaveners out there.)

So, as a requirement of the workshop I'm attending in May, I must turn in 200 pages of a novel on March 15th. That's Wednesday. I have 45 pages still to go. I did 35 total last weekend, but that was a four-day weekend where I took Monday and Tuesday off from work. I did 13 yesterday. I have to maintain close to that pace every day through Wednesday to make it. Will I make that same total today? Certainly not if I don't stop fucking around on LiveJournal!