Clarion South

On Getting My Groove Back & The Clarion South Donation Drive

PETERMBALL Journal , , ,

I’ve sent off three four submissions in the past 48 hours. I’ve done a rewrite of an old story that I’ve kinda figured out how to finish. I’ve cooked meals. I’ve washed up. I’ve forced myself to query some submissions where responses have obviously gone awry (I hate querying; it makes me feel needlessly pushy). I’ve done pro-active things on a bunch of little projects. I’ve cleaned out my e-mail backlog until there’s only a handful of things left to answer. There are the beginnings of new stories. Tomorrow, if the small change in my bag blesses me with enough space to hit the laundromat, there will even be wishing.

There is a groove, and I’ve almost got it back. Let’s see how I’m doing by this time tomorrow.

Of course, in cleaning out the backlog I was reminded, yet again, that I hadn’t posted this all public-like. With that in mind:

Due to a run of really bad luck, Clarion South Writers Workshop has hit
some rocky financial times (not unlike the rest of the world!) For the
month of March, we are running a fundraising appeal to help set us
straight again and ensure future workshops continue. We hope to get to
$4000by 31 March 2009.

There are a few ways you can help…

1. Donate to our Fundraising Appeal
Simply go to http://www.clarionsouth.org/donate.htm to make a PayPal
donation directly to Clarion South.

We really do appreciate even tiny donations, and if you are not in a
position to give, that is perfectly okay. We know it’s grim out there
for everyone right now.

2. Spread the word
Even if you can’t donate to the Appeal we would love your support to
spread the word about our fundraising drive. By the end of March we are
hoping to raise $4,000 for Clarion South. If you know any friends who
are sympathetic to the aims and activities of Clarion South, please let
them know – via Facebook, MySpace, your blog or any other means. We’ll
have a Facebook group up shortly, but in the meantime, please feel
free to direct people to our website at http://www.clarionsouth.org

And if you’re just wondering what the heck Clarion South even is,
meander on over to our website at http://www.clarionsouth.org

Thank you in advance for your love and support. We’re incredibly
passionate about Clarion South and would like to see it thrive and
continue into the future. Your contribution can help make this a
reality.

At time of posting I’d heard that they were a third of the way to their goal, which is good new to the future spec-fic writers of Australia (and the world, as my American peeps who flew south for Clarion continue to prove).

On diving well and failing to swim

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , , ,

So Chris Lynch has posted a more-or-less up-to-date bibliography of things achieved by our Clarion South class since the 2007 workshop. He’s put this together, along with some thoughts, because the two of us are scheduled to go have a chat with the current crop of Clarion South participants about what it’s like to finish the workshop and go back to the real world. I have to admit that my first response to Chris’s bibliography was a panicked that can’t be right, but it is. The only thing he’s missed is the 100 word story I had in Brimstone Press’s Black Box e-anthology, although I start to feel a little better when I factor in the three forthcoming stories that don’t appear on Chris’s summary. Even taking into account the kind of low-key achievements that occurred around the publications, it seems like so little for two years of work once it’s listed like that, and its started me thinking about the difference between 2007 and 2008.

2007 was a year that’s been very good to me. It kicked off with Clarion, followed up with nearly twelve months of work-ethic and productivity, then ended strong with the Gauntlet run of crazy rewriting and submission with Jason Fisher (and others, but Jasoni remains my coach on the Gauntlet front) that saw both of us pick up our game and focus on what needed doing. At Clarion we spent a lot of time talking about the possibility of Clarion Burnout with various tutors, and I spent a lot of time making sure that I wasn’t going to let the real-life difficulties get in the way of capitalizing on the opportunities Clarion brought about.

2008 actually looks like a good year for writing on paper, but I suspect that a lot of that comes down to the carry-on effect of 2007. To borrow a metaphor, think of it like diving off a springboard at the beginning of swim – 2007 was a good dive, so I didn’t actually have to paddle that hard in 2008 to get to the other side. There were some good flurries of movement in there (Horn drafted and submitted, PhD creative project finished, stories sold in 2007 hitting publication) but overall I just kind of dog-paddled around and didn’t achieve much. 2007 was were all the work happened, but by 2008 the work-ethic was shot and I allowed myself to prioritize other things over writing. If 2007 was a year where I fought against the possibility of Clarion Burnout, I’d suggest that 2008 is the year that it snuck up behind me and stole my wallet.

Thus far, 2009 is feeling like the year I’ve given up on work-ethic altogether. That worries me. I’ve been fumbling towards the realisation for a few weeks now, but I think it’s finally sunk in that the little voice in the back of my skull that says “you suck, do more” has stopped being self-doubt or a goad to action and started being an actual instruction. Time to fix that, I think.

Today I write 2,500 words. I don’t sleep until that’s done. Lets have at it.