Monday, February 25, 2008

Center for the Study of Science Fiction, Kansas

Well, on Saturday as Rhea and I discussed the worldbuilding workshop, then went for drinks and something to eat and to hammer out our second story some more (she threw a left curve into it so we had to sort out where it was NOW going), I talked about organizing the World Fantasy con SF Canada party. SF Canada is a very small country cousin to SFWA, the professional speculative writers organization.

I'm a member at large on our not too active board. We had talked about hosting a room party but our funds are limted as well and I knew no one would do anything unless I jumped on that bandwagon. I told Rhea that I'm doing this, one: because World Fantasy is in Canada this year (Calgary) and we should be highlighting our Canadian writers. It's part of SF Canada's mandates but rarely is much that's spectular done. Limited budget and all.

And I've been to enough WFCs to know what the parties are like. WFC is a professional con--mostly writers, publishers and editors. The schmooze quota can be high. My ulterior motive is that by being the organizer and being there I get to chat more with the editor/publishers. Not that it's been a huge problem in the past. Rhea kind of gave me a verbal bitch slap though, and said, why are you wasting this opportunity and you don't have a manuscript to pedal?

I said, because I'm just trying to keep myself in the saddle and write whatever I can and get something under my belt. Therefore I've been writing erotica because it's easy without getting bogged down in too much research or worldbuidling. I need to reinvigorate my writing, which has been working some. She wanted to know if there was any horror or fantasy in my novel but nooo, it's straight-out erotica. But damn her, she planted a seed in my wee brain.

And then I'm reading through LJ and read Kij's story. Some people have a way of evoking a world that's different than our reality but you swear after reading their tales that it's out there and you just hadn't noticed. Ursula LeGuin did it with Always Coming Home. Kij has done it several times. And then I recalled I'd been curious about the novel writing workshop she teaches in Kansas every summer. It's one of the few universities anywhwere that actually has a Center for the Study of Science Fiction. (Hmm, I hope fantasy is okay though I could argue my novel is SF just as Anne McCaffrey did.)

I gave her a call to just say hi but also to ask if this would be a good thing for me. Well, upshot is that if I can find the $$$ I think I'll take it as it will jumpstart the stalled novel. http://www2.ku.edu/~sfcenter/novel-workshop.htm If nothing else, then by WFC I'll at least have a partially reworked novel for consideration.