Art of the Odd

Remember when I got waitlisted for Clarion?

No, no. I didn’t get in. (Actually, I didn’t apply.) However, I did sign up for the href="http://www.theclarionfoundation.org/writeathon/wrtn-home.htm">Clarion UCSD Write-a-Thon, which is a fundraiser for The Clarion Foundation.

Each of the writers participating (and I’m in excellent company) has set their own goals for the Write-a-Thon. I’m trying to write for at least an hour each day, and I’ve promised to donate $10 for each hour I miss. (Since I managed to convince myself that the Write-a-Thon started today, instead of yesterday, one of my cohorts has already been the recipient of a $10 donation.)

I’ll also be posting excerpts from each day’s work. Here’s today’s:

A week later, Daisy found herself staring at the business end of one of Leon’s more docile cows, with a galvanized pail in her hand. “This is one of the ones I was going to call Betty,” Leon said. “She’s the gentlest of the bunch.”

“You wanted to name more than one of them after your wife?”

“This is the second he tried to name after me,” Betty said from the doorway of the barn. “The first one was meaner than a snake. He slept on the couch for two weeks after that.” She smiled sweetly at her husband. “You come on up to the house when you’re done,” she said. “I’ve got a present for your little girl.”

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to apply to the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, at UC San Diego. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve always thought of myself as a writer – but I haven’t always been willing actually to write, and one of the things that’s often stopped me is fear. Fear of sucking. Fear of not sucking. (Because if you don’t suck, then you really have no excuse, do you?) But, having made the resolution, I actually carried through, and this morning I got an email telling me that, although I wasn’t one of the 18 writers selected for the workshop, I have been put on the waitlist.

I can live with that.

In fact, I can more than live with that. I’m so excited I can barely type.

I’m a bit nervous, though. Because another of my resolutions was to submit at least one piece of writing for publication. I know which piece it is. It’s one of the short stories I submitted to Clarion. I’ve got one or two small edits left to make to it, and then away it goes. And I know which market’s getting it. It’s Weird Tales. My goal is to get it to them by the end of the week.

Wish me luck…