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I’ve been thinking about the different experiences of attending Clarion and completing my MA in Creative Writing. Not surprisingly, they’re very different experiences, and both have been overwhelmingly good experiences. For me at least. And I should say that I had a great (and successful) Clarion class and that I’ve found my grad program at UW-Milwaukee to be very open to speculative fiction. Results may vary, but I thought I’d share what I think each does well.

Clarion is, of course, the famed six-week sci-fi and fantasy writing workshop that’s helped launch many a pro career (my reflections on Clarion one year after coming home can be found here.) One of the things I heard from instructors at Clarion was that it beat the pants off creative writing courses offered at universities. I agree 100%, but my experience is that this says more about Clarion than university workshops. What Clarion does that a university cannot replicate is the sense of pressure Clarion puts on students. It’s writing, reading, and critiquing non-stop for six weeks, five days a week. You begin to smell story problems from a mile off. You see annoying mistakes in your classmates’ work that mirror mistakes you’re also guilty of making. You must put words on paper, especially when you don’t feel like it. There is no coming up for air. It’s story, story, story, and then when you think you’ve had enough, you get a double-helping of story. Slow, steady pressure turns coal into diamonds. I think Clarion works the same way.

The other biggest benefit of Clarion is the emphasis placed on publishing. Or at least submitting stuff for publication. The message was that you’ve got to send stuff out, the more the better. And until you’re doing this on a regular basis, you’re kind of spinning your wheels. In order to be a professional writer, you need to sell things. Don’t kid yourself. You will get rejected a lot. That’s part of the game and it takes a lot of patience. If you can’t deal with that, get into another business.

These strengths highlight some of the weaknesses I perceive in the grad school program. The instructors and classmates I have had are every bit as adept at pulling apart stories but there’s not that sense of pressure. Over a 14-week semester, each student puts out two stories for critique. Compare that to Clarion, where in six weeks most people put out five or six. In school, we meet once a week to kick around fiction writing. In Clarion, it was every day. Universities can’t replicate that kind of intensity, and that’s okay. Grad school has other things going for it.
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I brought back John Dos Passos’ USA Trilogy today to the tune of $41.15 in credit. I’d tried to read part of The 42nd Parallel over spring break and my enthusiasm flagged almost immediately. When I told a couple of my school buddies I was planning to read it, their simultaneous question was, “Why?” One had written his masters thesis on Dos Passos’ “camera eye” sections and said it bored him stiff.

So I instead traded out and got the following:

* Iron Council, King Rat, and The Scar by China Miéville
* Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke ($10 for hardcover!)
* The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson
* The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien

I added then deleted The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, figuring I could always pick it up later if need arises. This list is in addition to the half-dozen other books on the shelf that I’ve been meaning to read, like Mary Renault’s The King Must Die, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami, and Love and Hydrogen by Jim Shepard as well as digging deeper into the ParaSpheres slipstream/fabulist anthology.

I need to be writing a novel this summer and doing a lot of research on New York City, but I also want to keep reading stuff that I’m reasonably sure I’ll really get into with ease. The Miéville and Robinson I read for class hardly seemed like work, I like the Clarke excerpts I’ve read, and I expect to down the Tolkien like a cheap wine.

Ah, there’s nothing quite like an armful of books to induce giddiness.

Current Mood: Happy |
Currently Listening To - Beck - “Midnite Vultures”

I’ve only watched the briefest of highlights from the English league but it was a miraculous morning. Man Ure went down 2-0 away to Everton only to storm back to win 3-2, and Chelski went down 1-0 Bolton, leveled it, then went up 2-1 before finally drawing 2-2. A win to Man Ure and a draw to Chelski means the sides are separated by five points with only three games to go. Man Ure basically needs to lose two out of three in order to give Chelski a chance and they’ve only lost four all season. A last-gasp collapse seems unlikely.

The Premier League has never been won by the same team for three consecutive season. Man Ure has been frustrated by the Ars* in the past (a team that’s never even repeated a title I’ll be quick to point out), and now it looks like Man Ure will frustrate Chelski. For my money, this is a good thing. The relegation race is as tight as ever although Charlton’s hopes took a serious dent. West Ham are pressing hard but need wins against a stubborn Bolton side and a Man Ure side on the last day of the season. I wouldn’t put money on them escaping, but it’s not impossible.

In prepping for my MA exam I’m re-reading Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle since I haven’t read either in about a decade and figured I was due for a refresher. I remember loving of both but, my word, I’d somehow forgotten just how good they are.

I also started Jonathan Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude as the last book of the semester, a prime example of today’s literary fiction that bores me to death. I only need to read 30 pages a day in order to finish it by the class deadline and I’m finding it a difficult, snore-a-minute chore. Yes, Lethem can write poetic sentences and yes, he paints a vivid picture of his New York neighborhood but my God, nothing happens. It’s all character development and no action. There’s little here but pretty writing, and I need more than pretty writing to keep me interested. I’m told it picks up in the second half and I certainly hope it does.

Current Mood: Pretty Good |
Currently Listening To - Beck - “One Foot In The Grave”

There’s that part in Fight Club where Edward Norton talks about insomnia, saying you’re never really asleep…and you’re really never awake. That’s how I feel because for three nights running I’ve been having school dreams. Not bad school dreams like you’re running down the hallway because you overslept for your exam or you finish your oral report only to discover you forgot your pants at home. These are much more mundane, like the times in high school I dreamed I woke up, showered, ate, and drove to school only to then to hear my alarm clock go off and have to do it over again, only for real.

The last couple nights I’ve dreamed I’m discussing stuff in class, and when I wake up I struggle to determine whether it was a memory or a dream, or maybe both. Anyway, I’m hoping my subconscious reads this post: something other than school dreams tonight, please? Sleep is losing its recuperative power.

I’m finishing books like mad. Within the last few days, I finished Winesburg, Ohio, Heirs of Columbus, Critical Theory and Science Fiction, and I’m within 100 pages of completing Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.

None of these books thrilled me and it’s been a tough month for reading. Perdido Street Station was very long but highly enjoyable, so the only tough part was getting the reading done in a week; Heirs and Sands were written in deliberately difficult styles, meaning I needed to read, then re-read, and sometimes even re-re-read just to get what’s going on. This is exhausting work and not what you need at the end of an exhausting semester. So even though I don’t necessarily like that kind of fiction, I readily admit that the numerous questions such texts bring up is fodder for lively discussion. I wouldn’t recommend either unless you’re going to be able to talk to other people about them.

I’ve said this before, but Winesburg, Ohio would have been better to read than listen to. The stories themselves are pretty good but the actors reading them tried to do too much. Long, thoughtful pauses and affected southernish accents did not lend themselves to keeping me attentive. Part of me wants to write Winesburg, Ohio 2010, replete with crack whores, Internet porn, and child molesters. Just for fun.

Current Mood: Back to the Grindstone |

School has gotten stupidly busy here in the last dying weeks and blogging is always the first thing to go. Expert shorter posts and maybe (horrors!) a day here and there without a post.

From Dave Schwartz:

Current Mood: Bleck |
Currently Listening To - Joe Strummer - “Walker”

I just received my contributor’s copies of Weird Tales, featuring my story “Working Out Our Salvation.” Happily, it has an awesome full-page illustration to accompany the story. This is the special launch of the “new look” of the magazine and (although I may be biased) I have to say I like it. It also sounds like there’s a chance that I’ll be signing copies at the Prime Books’ dealer’s table at WisCon, so remember to come early to beat the rush. Seriously though, go out and buy the magazine. I’ve said this before, but it’s honestly one of my favs.

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Other than that bit of excitement, my Monday’s a drag. I’m just not digging Delany’s Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (but I did find this funny review that sums up how I feel about it) or Gerald Vizenor’s Heirs of Columbus. It’s not that I think either book is bad, just that they’re not my cuppa.

Also, lunchtime footie was cancelled. This is annoying because I find the exercise to be a great stress reliever, and I wasted quite a bit of time getting ready and driving to the facility and back. I guess that means back to reading…

Current Mood: A Blip of Excitedness, Then Boredom |

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Madness. That’s all can be said heading into the last month of the European footie season. The highlights from England:
* Man Ure and Chelski neck and neck at the top of the table
* Five teams competing for a spot in Europe
* Six (!) teams in serious danger of relegation (well, Watford’s already down)
* FA Cup final between Man Ure and Chelski
* Three English teams in the semifinals of the Champions League
* Three Championship teams within two points fighting for the two automatic promotion berths to the Premier League
* Seven (!) Championship teams in the run for the play-offs

The only way this could get more exciting is if Liverpool had ten more points and could be pushing for the league title, but you can’t have it all…

Things are almost as nutty in Spain:
* Three teams within three points at the top of the table
* Five teams pushing for European places
* Three teams in the UEFA Cup semifinals
* Six teams in relegations danger

The title races in Germany and Holland are equally close between three teams. In contrast, Lyon, Celtic, and Inter Milan have already won the titles in France, Scotland, and Italy, respectively. If I had more time, I’d watch more Deutscher fußball as I hear the Bundesliga is quite a fun league but alas, I have no such time. The football in France, Holland, and Italy has never really interested me, though.

Attended a lovely wedding yesterday for our friends Fung and Chris and got good and messy at reception, a fact which I’m regretting today. My hangovers are the stuff of legend and they’ve gotten worse with age.

Small update: All the parties involved have agreed to do my MA exam on May 15. Now I just need to fill out the paperwork and barring any unforeseen problems (ha!) I should be good to go.

Amy thinks I should have to read 45 new books of someone else’s choosing for the three-hour oral exam. Lovely, isn’t she?

Current Mood: Ill |

Only two more indoor footie sessions until the facility shuts down the noon pick-up until mid-October. It’s been a lot of fun, despite the fact that my body is trashed from the shins down. My ankles are perpetually sore, several of my toes are bruised or jammed, and my ankle braces have lacerated my Achilles tendons.

Happily, I’ve discover that the good Dr. Scholl makes corn cushions that work perfectly for protecting the Achilles. His Moleskin Plus also does the business but it’s expensive and I go through it way too fast. In case you were wondering about my general foot health on a gorgeous Friday evening.

I’m 100 pages deep into Samuel Delany’s Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand and I’m having a hard time getting into it. It’s good, but there’s a certain brand of science-fiction that uses so much terminology that it (deliberately) keeps the reader at arm’s length. I find Stars that way so far and, while I’m finding it interesting, it’s sort of like eating crab: you do a lot of work to get a little meat. Consider the overtly sexual nature of Stars, that might be the wrong metaphor…

2/3rds done with Winesburg, Ohio and will be looking forward to moving on. This is a book that would have been better to read than to listen to a full cast adding “color” to the work. Interesting glimpses at small town life in the 20’s, which is of course what it’s famous for.

I didn’t get very far in Gerald Vizenor’s Heirs of Columbus last week before finally putting it down and concentrating on Perdido Street Station. We actually didn’t get to discuss Vizenor in class this week which means I get a second bite at the cherry. It’s not my favorite. Again, Vizenor wants the book to be a lot of work, using a skipping narrative technique that keeps the reader off balance. I like to retain my balance when I read, thank you, so I find books like this exhausting without a big enough reward. (See above.)

Television is the ultimate passive activity and, after frying my eyes with so much weekly reading, I’m watching more TV now than I have in years, albeit only a few must-see shows. Thanks to the DVR, I’ve watched an astounding number of MythBusters episodes, a show that never ceases to entertain me. I never miss the weekly English Premier League highlight show, and I watch as much footie as I can from around the margins of my books. Amy is hopelessly addicted to Style network’s Clean House, which is hilarious and I can’t be in the same room while its on without being drawn in.

The only other must-see TV is the UFC on SpikeTV. They replay the same matches over and over, but I do make it a point to watch The Ultimate Fighter, a reality show/competition that promises the show’s winners contracts in the UFC. This season it’s all guys in the newly established lightweight division and the personalities involved make for mesmerizing television. There may be serious mental issues at play with a couple of these guys but man, I think they feed them raw meat and nails because these are some street tough bastards.

I’ve become a big fan of Jens “Lil’ Evil” Pulver, primarily because he’s the underdog coach. Everyone seems to think that BJ Penn, the other coach, is a demigod. He may be a great fighter but I’m not sure he’s a great coach. Team Penn seems fragmented and dispirited which is understandable considering their three match losing streak, but Penn seems to be sowing the discord rather than dampening it. Jens Pulver on the other hand has brought in some top trainers and is really working his team out. Not to mention that he sometimes sports an awesome mollet (the mullet-mohawk hybrid).

Current Mood: Tired Eyes |

I knew things were moving along too smoothly. Everything has been lining up for me to take my MA exam by June 1, do my creative writing project over the summer, graduate in August, and start the Ph.D. in September. Great, right?

Except for the fact that I can’t enroll in classes because I’ve applied for graduation from the Masters program and haven’t yet been accepted into the Ph.D. program. I can’t be accepted by the Ph.D. program until the committee meets to review my application in July. Which means I won’t be able to register until August. Which means I get last pick of classes. And I’m not particularly interested in the slim pickings on offer to begin with.

This is the not-fun-at-all part. I won’t know if I have a teaching position until July and I won’t be able to register for classes until August, which means I have virtually no idea what I’ll be doing from Sept to Dec next year. No idea what classes, how many credits, whether I’ll be teaching, what days I’ll be commuting, or if some unforeseen bureaucratic glitch will keep me out of school until spring. The kind of stress one doesn’t need heading into the final leg of the semester.

On the other hand, yesterday’s classroom discussion around Perdido Street Station was awesome and I had an illuminating pre-class talk with one of my classmates who has read most everything of Miéville’s. Ideally, that’s what school is supposed to be: a place where you’re giddy about what you’re learning and exchanging all kinds of new ideas. Unfortunately all the administrative stuff puts a damper on it and I don’t think it ever really stops, even after you’ve landed a job. Department politics sound like the fifth layer of hell.

It’s a good thing I had no illusions about academia going into this. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t drive me crazy and I do my best to keep it from sapping my strength. But it’s hard.

UPDATE: As four minutes ago, I’ve been notified that my problems will most likely be solved if I move my exam date to mid-May, less than a week after classes finish. For the record, I was first told that my exam should be done by August. Then July 16. Then I was advised it would be good to do it before June 1. Now, the newest date is around May 15.

I’m think I should try and do it tomorrow with no preparation just in case that “recommended date” suddenly becomes yesterday. Okay, enough whining for today. I know, I brought this on myself…

Current Mood: Quite Pissed, Actually |

Bored at work? Look for the Bean at doggy daycare! Don’t be fooled by the mostly black German Shepherd, and it helps in finding her if there’s a person in the picture. Athena prefers the company of humans because, you know, she thinks she is one.

And I received an email today asking if I was, in fact, 16th century painter Jacopo Tintoretto.

An interesting theory but I’ve never had that much hair, not even in high school.