CLARITY

Clarity is a fickle mistress. Earlier, in that half world between slumber and sentience, she sat on my bed, smiling down at me. She was beautiful. I was cold.

Now there’s nobody here except Nurse Hewitts on his evening ward rounds. Hewitts is a huge bloke, big even for a Nurse. He told me that when I was admitted weeks ago I was confused, confounded and — condemningly — babbling obscenity about a blonde woman. A female.

“When can I leave?” I ask.

“When you restore the balance in your mind, Seymour. Align yourself with clarity.”

“But I have!” Exasperation. “She was here before.” Confusion. Who? Then a marooned mental light bulb. “This morning!”

“She, Seymour?” Hewitts questions. “This morning? You were asleep. Recovering.”

He thinks I’m like any other man in this institution who hasn’t come to terms with the Re-organisation. But me? I would never have said what they claim I did. Even before Re-org, I was one of the minority who didn’t watch pornography or go to strip clubs.

And since Re-org? I’ve done well for myself. My wife is a successful CEO, and I traded my career years ago to stay home and raise our two state-sponsored, anonymous-IVF-donor daughters. The Femocracy should see me as a model male citizen. I’ve played my part in the solution against rape, domestic abuse, and men’s other crimes against females. Sure, there are restrictions, but the world’s a better place now.

“Why am I here, Hewitts?”

“Seymour, I’ve told you. Your ill-feelings toward females. Men’s physical strength must be contained until their minds are clear.” He sighs. “You’re agitated. You were dreaming. We’ll up your serum dose.”

If earlier was a dream, I don’t want it again. Dreams spark regrettable fires. The females were right to introduce the serum after Re-org. I think of the years before men’s dreams were controlled and my gut spasms. Our imperfect brains tortured us with twisted fragments of violent, oversexed lives. Dreams dangle before us what our biology demands but our society now prohibits. What man with clarity of mind would want to dream?

I roll over. “Fine.”

***

The sun claws its way over the Great Divide as I wake. Why can’t I remember the last time I saw a sunrise?

A blonde female in a white coat sits on my bed, grinning. She wears a name-tag but my vision refuses to focus.

“Good morning, Seymour.”

The tip of a syringe glistens in her fingers. Red-lacquered nails tap the liquid barrel. I feel skin pierce at my inner elbow, and the pharmaceutical flow pushes into my bloodstream.

Her voice is playful: petulant honey. “I can’t understand why the serum wears off so early on you.”

She runs her other hand up my thigh, stroking, toward my groin. My body is numb but still responds. I remember. I want to vomit. But it’s too late. The viscous soporific has polluted my veins.

I manage to speak before paralysis triumphs.

“Don’t touch me, Clarity. Not again.”

So what’s got me all abuzz? Well, I’m excited on two fronts.  Firstly, that WorldCon this year (September 2-6) is to be held in my home town of Melbourne – boo-yah to that, I say. Secondly, I will be moving back home from Edinburgh *just* in time to revel in the awesomeness of this event.  It’s my first WorldCon, so as you can probably imagine, I’m as hyper as a kid on an endless supply of red cordial.  Trying to not be starry-eyed as I wander the halls will be a tall order, particularly as some of my biggest idols (erm, George R.R. Martin, anyone?) are expected to be in attendance. How I will control the fangirl impulses, I am yet to figure out.

On another note, I’m happy to hear from the lovely organiser folks that I’m scheduled to be on a panel or two for YA related topics (with my Scape editor’s hat on).  From what I’ve heard from other attendees and panelists, this is shaping up to be a diverse and vibrant stream for those with YA and MG interests.  This is obviously to be expected with an international event of these proportions, but it is surely also a testament  to the depth and strength of Australian fantasy, sci fi and horror authors who write YA, such as Kate Forsyth, George Ivanoff, Margo Lanagan, Garth Nix and Michael Pryor (though the list goes on… for a long time).

Plus I’ll finally get to put some faces to names in terms of my fellow AHWA members, and of course there’s the Nightmare Ball, which should be a hoot.

Yep. I’m excited. But right now I’ve got a PhD to write.

Hope to see you in September!

So, reassessing? I hope in the next few weeks to get through 2-3 short story ideas that have been nagging me for the past two months.  Aiming to have the first draft of the first idea finished by the next crit period in my critique group – despite all the goal-setting bruhaha I’ve been missing my chances at feedback due to inactivity.

This particular story is driving me bonkers.  I really don’t want to write it.  It’s stupid, dark and yet strangely compelling (but I am guessing that last quality is only for me – I don’t think it will get a very good reception when it sees the light of day, in crit group or further afield).  For some reason though, I can’t get past it.  I am completely hamstrung in terms of writing until I am rid of the beast.  It sits there on my shoulder, kicking it’s little devil legs in the air (heels bouncing and jarring against my collarbone), chortling about how it demands to be written before anything else.  And I swear if I try to look at another project, it slams a syringe of mind f*£$ into my jugular.

Oh dear.  Have I discovered my muse?  A cartoon mini-Lucifer with an ammo belt of brain-washing drug vials?

Ye gods.

In other news, Clarity is up for another few days yet at AntipodeanSF if you hadn’t seen it.  It’s not taking tooooo much of a hammering in the vote system… at least it wasn’t last time I looked.

This seems a strange and somewhat disappointing situation at a time when speculative YA novels and movies are perhaps in their greatest ever boom.  I won’t ever be placing any of my own fiction in Scape (or at least won’t while I am editor in chief, never say never, I suppose) but I wanted to see what I could do to support this area of spec fic by transferring my academic editing experience to the fiction world.

Scape will focus mostly on short stories and accompanying art, but we’ll also feature poetry, reviews, interviews and more.  If you’re interested in finding out more, there’s a placeholder website (including submissions guidelines) here: www.scapezine.com.  It will be replaced by the actual zine site in all its glory from January when we release the first issue.

I won’t be blogging extensively about Scape on my personal blog.  For updates, see the Scape site or the corresponding blog at www.scapezine.wordpress.com or follow ScapeZine on Twitter.

…and now I need to  …breathe.

I’ve just finished the first rounds of edits on a new story ‘Malachite, the Mulberry Tree and the Battle for the Lost Marbles’ (working title, lol).  Two people have generously critiqued drafts so far.  The first was a fellow AHWA member who has been a big support.  The second was my husband, who spends more of his life in a lab than a library but is fast becoming an astute short story critic.  Not to mention his new found skills as ‘manager’ of the neurosis and other foibles of my writing persona.  I hope I never take for granted the value of an encouraging partner, it’s priceless.  Anyway, part of his advice last night was to step away and let ‘Malachite’ sit for a couple of weeks now that I’ve edited and re-edited.  He’s right.  One of my biggest lessons so far with writing short stories is to never underestimate the power of a week or three away from a piece to gain clarity and perspective.  One of my favourite authors, Margo Lanagan, so aptly terms it ‘composting’ time.  So, one of my goals this year (other than the 50 rejections!) is to stay at least two stories ahead of my crit group submission period.  This means I’ll be able to structure both critical and ‘composting’ time for each piece while I work on something else.  That way, I won’t ever be caught ‘waiting’ for critiques or time-earned clarity, so can’t use that as an excuse to procrastinate.  It will also reduce the temptation to send stuff prematurely into the slush mill.

Other progress news? The c7,500K version of Byrd of Prey has just run my AHWA critique group gauntlet and stood up reasonably well.  The main point of running it through in that form was to see if I could get a meaningful short story out of it or if it can only exist as a longer piece.  I think the feelings were a little mixed on the short story but ultimately it’s interesting enough to develop into a novella/novel.  So, I will dabble with that idea as time permits.  But, I’ve done quite a bit of work on world building already, so I want to do this project justice. I’ll be on the lookout for relevant mentoring programs/workshops to get the best out of it that I can.  Hopefully the AHWA mentoring program is launched again soon.

Other current projects? A multiple POV science-fiction short story ‘Never Spring’ that I’ve semi-researched and am now starting to think about.  Kip and Eilia might get a look in for a short story as well.  But come early June, I’ll be in regional France researching for the YA novel, so whatever isn’t done by then will be put on the back-burner while I plow through my first book-length manuscript.

Yearly count: 2 rejections down, 48 left to go. 

On one hand, I’ve been told (and have read in numerous places) that I should be concentrating on getting some short story sales before I even contemplate ‘the novel’.  Many successful authors swear that new writers should aim to sell at least half a dozen short pieces before approaching an agent or publisher about a longer work.  That seems to be practical and sound advice.  It’s the goal I would hope to achieve over the next few years.

On the other hand, I feel like this mindset has created tension in my writing.  I’ve developed a preoccupation with turning every story idea into a short piece.  Yet many of the characters and plots that spring into my head want to stay around for longer than 3-5,000 words.  A few of them are demanding that they get the stage for far longer (namely Isra from Byrd of Prey, but also Kip and Eilia). And I’m also loathe to tackle Maddy’s story in MoM until I’ve got some more runs on the board.

I guess the question is, do you risk it?  If going long is your priority, can you do it without the short story sales? Do you pour everything you’ve got into a longer work and hope that you can pull off the miracle of having someone in the business take the time to at least read it?  And that’s before they even seriously consider if your work has merit. Are you setting yourself up for failure by going down that direct route, sans short story credits?

Daring or disaster? It’s probably not as clear-cut as it sounds.

The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) recently highlighted a survey looking at first novel sales in the speculative fiction field.  Jim C. Hines conducted the original survey and analysis.  Steve Saus offers further analysis here.  Interestingly, you’ll see there’s no significant/strong correlation between the numbers of short stories sold (if any) and the publication of one’s first novel.  The data therefore suggests that it really isn’t a requirement to have a list of pro and semi-pro mag/antho credits to your name before you can consider venturing down the novel path to publication.  Short stories may make the journey a little smoother or swifter, but they’re not absolutely necessary.

So, I’m now going to take things with a grain of salt.  I’ll let the longer works evolve naturally and in the mean time I’ll keep working on short stories when I have ideas relevant to that format.  One of my writing goals will remain the accumulation of as many short story rejection slips as possible.  Why rejection slips?  Because you can’t control acceptances and my biggest aim is to actually finish stories and send them out for scrutiny.  I got the idea from reading Peter M Ball’s blog.  Now, Peter is an absolute gun writer (and one of my favourite short story authors), and he is aiming for 100 rejections in 2010.  So, I’ll aim for 50 (because I’ll be writing far, far less and won’t have as many good ideas, but will have a far, far greater chance of rejection!).

Ok, enough blogging and more writing – I’m about to start a new short story (yes, it truly is going to be just that), tentatively titled Never Spring.  Researching as we speak…

The longer I’m a member of my critique group, the more it wigs me out.  Spent two hours on a critique after I first woke up this morning (probably not a good time to do critiques when you’re not a morning person) and have spent the last four hours wondering if I completely cocked it up.  Did I provide any value to the author?  Was I insulting?  Did I spend enough time on the critique?  Was I objective enough? And this was a critique on a story I really liked!

Maybe I’m being neurotic, but giving critiques has been a far more fraught experience than receiving them.  Particularly with the online platform – you don’t have all the usual social cues to guide you.  I’m sure if we were meeting face to face I would have less angst about being misunderstood.  On the other hand, online is good because it’s a lot more flexible and you’re more likely to be honest/uncensored when not ‘put on the spot’ face to face.

Receiving critiques also presents problems.  Not the actual criticism – for me, that was fine.  I thought I might get offended or be too soft skinned for the process, but I loved it.  Maybe even loved it too much.  I could see the point behind all the critiques of the first piece I submitted to the group and thought the advice completely valid.  The problems arose when the feedback from different members conflicted.  I began to second and third guess what the piece was about, what was important, what would sell, what would bore, what was a trope, what was overdone, what was too subtle…  I know logically that even if you want to, you can’t please everyone. Which means there’s no magic recipe to please every editor, either.  Eventually you’re just going to have to choose a line to follow, stick with it and then start subbing.

I guess the outcome of all of this is that I now understand what Tom Piccirilli meant when he was writing about the potential pitfalls of critique groups for fledging writers.  You can see the full text in his article Fighting the Good Fight over at the Horror Writers Association website.

In summary, Piccirilli says there are three main problems for early career writers involved with critique groups.  Firstly, beginner writers are more likely to pat each other on the back than to give scathing critiques (even when they are called for).  Secondly, critique groups can end up merely being agony aunt sessions about the harshness of the publishing industry.  Thirdly, as a beginner writer, you won’t know which advice to take when the critiques from different members don’t agree (and you’ll be more likely to take the positive feedback than the negative).

Don’t get me wrong, I think my crit group is great and I have absolutely no complaints.  I love the camaraderie and having regular contact with other genre writers.  I also think Piccirilli’s second point is irrelevant for my group – they’re supportive, but it’s never been an us-against-the-world bitch fest, at least certainly not in the couple of months I’ve been a member.  So no problems whatsoever there.  But I do feel a sense of my own immaturity as a new writer and wonder if/when I’ll be able to build the confidence and skills to overcome Piccirilli’s first and third points.

Until then, I suppose I’ll just try not to be too critical of this well-meaning but inexperienced critic – me.

Thoughts, anyone?