Like last year, I’m helping to raise funds for the Clarion West 2015 Write-a-thon.
If you’re so inclined, please sponsor me and add to the $50 I’ve chucked into the pot.
“Clarion West Writers Workshop is a nonprofit literary organization based in Seattle, Washington, with a mission to improve speculative fiction by providing high quality education to writers at the start of their careers. As an extension of its primary mission, Clarion West also makes speculative fiction available to the public by presenting readings and other events that bring writers and readers together.”
As a speculative fiction writer aspiring to paid publication, I love that a world-renowned organization like this is right in my backyard and how they are supporting literature. I attended one of their one-day workshops earlier this year and found it immensely helpful in learning how to critique my own and others’ work and look forward to attending more in the future.
This year I also applied for and was not accepted to this year’s six-week program. My writing ego bruised by rejection, I resolved to complete a new short story and submit it for publication this year as a way to work through the disappointment and as a goal for my Write-a-thon participation.
I’m happy to report that I have finished the story, that it landed at novelette length (around 9,900 words, down from 13,509 [yay, editing,]) and have completed my first-ever submission for paid publication! Now I wait for the inevitable rejection/re-submission process until someone decides to buy it and will be switching off tapping away at my novel and completing two other unfinished, shorter works.
Writing, completing, and editing that story was a hell of a slog the past four months. It was the first time I really forced myself to write even when I felt stuck and editing it seemed to take forever. I can’t wait to be able to share it with you once it’s published, whenever that happens. 🙂
Heather Kilbourn 