Monday, August 8

Clarion Fact and Fiction (from my not so humble Clarion West Class of 2005 perspective)

Fact: Clarion West does prep writers for professional careers. Even those of us coming to enrich our “art” publication or no learn a few things about the business end of the stick. Sure some of the reality stuff sucks and hearing about the “Editorial Red Line” made some of us nauseous (or is that nauseated) but we persevered. And we learned that perseverance is the key to success, screw talent and inspiration…

Fiction: CW is drama central. I heard the stories about writer’s workshops. Apparently we were a pretty “tame” class (no addicts, no affairs, no brawling, scapegoats or public eviscerating) but I think that’s a compliment. I didn’t come to Clarion West for a soap opera – and I’m pretty damn pleased that some of the biggest static in our class came out of gender roles of characters in stories. To me that says something about our overall class and professionalism. Go team go. (Insert self congratulatory back patting here)

Faction (yes that is a new word in this application, I made it up myself): So before I came to Clarion West I read a website that claimed that Clarionites form this elite clique that thumbs its noses at “non” Clarionites. The truth of the matter is this – we went though an intense experience that none of us will forget anytime soon. We have “in jokes,” stories that sound weird to anyone who wasn’t there, cool t-shirts, secret decoder rings – and a handshake. I’m just kidding about the handshake thing… but there is something to going through an intense situation with a group of people. Its like surviving a plane crash, going through boot camp – or, gasp, pledging to a sorority (heheheeee!) We will probably squeal and/or hug each other on sight, and cluster when we meet at cons for some catching up. Except you Stephen, I don’t think you have a squeal in your entire body, eh? But if you smile and wear that killer WTF tee shirt, I’ll know you a mile away. Hi to your sweetie – I know she’s glad to have you home!

But I can guarantee you that I will neither thumb my nose, nor criticize anyone who hasn’t gone or chooses not to attend Clarion West. It may not be for everyone, and you certainly don’t NEED to go to get published. It doesn’t make any editor more likely to publish you. It doesn’t even guarantee you a ticket out of the slush pile. People come to Clarion West for lots of reasons, the least of which is to feel superior to non-Clarion writers. I for one am happy to talk about the experience to people who are considering the possibility of attending – especially those that think they aren’t good enough or can’t handle the load. Hey if they took me and I survived, you can too!

I’ll even show you my secret decoder ring. Pinkie swear.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Neat assessment. Hope to see you soon for some squealing.

8/13/2005 9:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On the left it says that "stewardesses" is the longest word that can be typed with one hand. I ran a quick check, and it appears that "tesseradecade" is actually longer, but doesn't seem to have a definition that I can find.

Oh, wait, here we go: group(s?) of 14, if I can believe the internet.

See also Google for more ruminations upon this. The longest words I got (without using plurals or conjugation) were:

gazetteerage
reasseverate
terracewards
tessaradecad
aftercataract
devertebrated
tesseradecade

...this page seems to imply that "tesseradecades" is valid, thus making it the winner. If you believe the internet (I couldn't find that word in my OED).

8/14/2005 10:36 AM  
Blogger Eddie said...

Oh lord...somebody actually took my silly sidebar facts as an opportunity to "outwit the writer." Too bad the writer is a big dummy who just copied that fact from another website without bothering to check said fact to see if it wa real cause she's lazy and wanted to fill some empty space..LMAO!

You win, whoever you are...thanks for playing, please come again!

8/15/2005 3:04 PM  
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8/15/2005 3:27 PM  
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8/15/2005 3:33 PM  
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8/15/2005 3:40 PM  
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8/15/2005 3:53 PM  
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8/15/2005 4:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, sorry, no; not trying to outwit, just genuinely intrigued (I guess I shoulda included more backstory). I'd always heard the same thing, and was curious about whether it was indeed true. It seems like such a standard word to be the longest--usually the "longest" winners are freaky words like antidisestablishmentarianism and the like. Nobody knows what those mean.

So, yeah, no win or loss here. Just fascination.

Thanks for the weblog treats!

8/16/2005 8:39 PM  
Blogger Eddie said...

anything to please the masses!
:-) glad you enjoy!

8/17/2005 11:35 AM  

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