January Mortimer's Journal

Clarion Week One: "Making Baby Jesus Cry"

2007-11-04T22:28:22Z

_{(Our quotes never turned up on a t-shirt, but they were recorded. Week One's quote comes via Betsy and a hilarious snippet of hers. Betsy, what happened to that story?)}

San Diego -- Week One:

I warn you now: I'm not going to try to be brief.
- - - - - -

The first page in my paper journal says:

Palm Tree. Is hot and not sure (illegible). Got here -- Shweta + oth. Clari-tribe found me in Middle Earth. Have lost shoes.

It says little else intelligible. Eight hour jet lag and nerves will do that to you.

I arrived in San Diego without any luggage mishaps or travel emergencies and got to the USCD campus by the age-old method of pointing at the map, talking loudly, and waving my arms. Taxi man was very nice, but neither of us could understand the other's accent. And yes, we were both speaking English as a first language.

The campus was rather strange: white concrete, canyons of cream-white buildings, more blinding white concrete pavements and an unreal blue sky overhead. (One day, I'll post a google map campus view, but I'm damned if I can find the right place now). I managed to wander cream-coloured concrete canyons for a good 20 minutes, before arriving at a building labelled Middle Earth.

"You know, I bet if I stand here long enough, Clarionites will appear," I said to a passing seagull.

Three minutes later, they did, and all was well. I helped drag bags, boxes and a hot pot from Shweta's car, and together we paraded back through the canyons and found our appointed residences where I promptly forgot everyone's names and hoped name tags would become part of my life very soon.

The rooms aren't actually too bad. Long & narrow, rather than wide, but better than what I had at Uni -- no mould, to start & the light coming in the window's almost too bright. Is all very white. Needs posters. Downstairs (we have two floors!) the kitchen/sitting room is open plan. There's one large bathroom/toilet, a cupboard under the stairs, a mysterious windowless room bigger than my bedroom, and a proper bedroom (Betsy's).

For the size of the room, my desk is enormous. Forget the bed, I could sleep on the desk. Also, I'm fairly sure the wardrobe is a TARDIS. It's huge and has exactly zero coat hangers. Somewhere in there are my shoes.

As I discovered, there was in fact another shower and toilet hidden upstairs, though I didn't find them until about Tuesday. There were no coat hangers. None. Dear Future Clarionling, you'll have large draws under the bed, but bring coat hangers. Also, the dorm-supplied towels are the size of postage stamps. Bring towels, people.

All told, our workshop took up four flats: two in one building, three in another across the "canyon". All the apartments besides mine were spread out across a single floor, but were otherwise much the same.

Here's the roof of the laundry building, along the track from our block:

- - - -

Meeting people

We've met Greg Frost our first week instructor, and the San Diego Clarion Coordinators. All seem v. nice. A mini get-together was held in the canteen: Kim Stanley Robinson gave welcome speeches. He also informed us "If you have the choice of writing or socialising: socialise, don't write."

We all jotted that down.

During the next six weeks, that quote was shouted up at windows and down stairs. It got taken to the beach several times.

My flatmates are Betsy, Desirina, Julie and Shewta all of whom seem wonderful. And all the people here are _just like me_. It's 2 am and I've been chatting since dinner time.

The First Afternoon

I'd never been to a SF convention or had non-e-friends who read speculative fiction. I'd also never interacted with anyone with a writer's brain. To suddenly meet, not one, but half a dozen others. . . well: Wow.

We stayed up past midnight, discussing short stories, finishing each others' sentences at times. And when a story came up that half of us could quote from but none could name, there was mass-googling-into-action. It was "Cruel Sister" by Patricia C. Wrede and we were all very pleased with ourselves. Kudos to Betsy who identified the name 30 seconds before everyone else! :)

I rather think I talked like a maniac during the first week. With relief at not being made to sit on the beach (as per week zero anxiety dreams) and with delight that, yeah, I was here, and the people were all kinds of awesome.

- - - -

Several other events of note occurred before the "Workshop" part of the week even started,.

1. The Cliff. Not so much an event, as a series of events. I promise, I never fell off them. Unlike Greg.

2. The Finding and Naming of Dr Sneag. Dr Sneag appears in various photo so should really get a mention somewhere in this post.

Once, on a completely not dark or stormy day, a car full of Clarionites and Greg Frost went on a quest for coat hangers, mugs and the fabled Target. An opticians next to a subway (eyeball sandwiches, yum!) appeared, shortly followed by a mildly scary puppet.

Dr Sneag (the puppet, not the eye doctor) became something of a mascot. He appears in various strange places, like in the cover page of the Dead Romans anthology. Currently, he sits in my front window an weirds out the postman.

- - - - -

The workshop:

Apparently, our workshop structure is a bit of an experiment. We're being flexible.

Greg made an Executive Decision, and instead of giving critiques one after the other, going 'round the table, things are freestyle-ish. We say things when we've something to say. The moderator is whomever is sitting to the victims left. When you have something to contribute, raise a hand and the moderator adds you to the list. They also keep order & time.

I am going to do my bloody best not to be moderator this week. Can't remember anyone's names & swear, some of the blokes must go to the same barber. Or be clones.

Or both.

_{not really, guys. I figured out who was who quite quickly!}

We're also not critiquing our submission stories, which is a good thing for me. I'm sick of the damned things. That said, the nosy part of me wants to see what the others submitted!

*

Our days fell into this pattern:

7.30 - 8.50 Breakfast. Choice of: doughnut/pseudo-chocolate pastrythings; cereal (if you could find it); meat products including bacon & sausage; scrambled egg; scrambled egg with yesterday's diced meat products; potato; waffle/pancake/roundishthing; maybe a tray of mini bagels. A fruit bar appeared mysteriously around week 4. Coffee, tea and hot chocolate was available.

Holy Wow Batman! There's proper tea! And Cadbury's hotchoc!
Yeah, might not have needed to drag my teabags cross-Atlantic. Note made. Lesson learned.

9.00 - 12.00 Workshop!

12.00 - 13.00 Lunch. Lunch = something brown, something in red sauce, something in a bun. A salad bar (after week 1), chips/fries, bread, m&m/chocolate chip biscuits or brownies or strangeyellowcake. Pizza appeared erratically until around week 4.

Greg tells a convention anecdote. Reactions are mixed

13.00 - 6.30 Personal Conferences & Whatever. Possibly writing, critting or sleeping.

The evening schedule varied from week to week.

Week 1 included cliff walks, evening discussions, and *gasp*writing.

In a massive fit of wordbarfing, I managed something approaching 5,000 words and a full overhaul-edit in my first three days, finishing up a story I'd started a week before Clarion. The Diamond story (it still doesn't have a proper title) was critiqued on Tuesday and was the third thing to be thrown to the wolves critiqued. I learned quickly that consensus is a rare thing. Yay for Conflicting Advice! :)

- - - - - -

I've really gone on for too long already about Clarion San Diego, year 1, week 1, but it seemed to last forever.

So it's time for lots&lots of photos. Most of these I took myself, ones that come from the communal pool have an *.

Somewhere along the line, we had a reception in a courtyard and meeting room elsewhere on campus. I'm not going to be able to remember everyone who was there, and I didn't have my camera. I'll particularly mention Nancy Holder (she's below, later in the week at her reading at Mysterious Galaxy), David Brin and Vernor Vinge, both of whom dropped by for chats in later weeks.

What would a workshop be without waterfights?

Chalk! On our first epic journey to Target, I picked up a four-pack of giant crayola chalk. I was very glad I did.... I started a trend. :)
_{Dear Future Clarionites, we left you massive amounts of chalk. And next year, I want pictures. K?}

* *

- - - - -

Blogging of the workshop was massively discouraged and, to be honest, I was glad. Last year, I kept a weather eye on various Clarion blogs (past and present), and was thoroughly unnerved by what I could read between the lines.

It made me wonder when our perfect workshop gang would break ranks and go to war with one another.

At this point, I suggested the name of the “Moron Room”: a large empty, windowless room in apartment B/S/J/D/J (mine). Remembering the stories of loathing and woe of Clarions-past, I asked people to order me into the Moron Room if I started acting like a moron. I would do likewise if there were any other outbreaks of moronicity.

(It was never needed, thank goodness)

We were also warned off walking around at night -- or at _any_ time in the Eucalyptus forest -- because of
1) Rattlesnakes
2)OMG DANGEROUSHOMELESSPEOPLE.

I know Tania, the coordinator, was simply concerned for our safely, but it really was not that dangerous. I eventually overcame these warnings and went walking: I came across exactly zero dangerous persons wielding rattlesnakes.

I did find some funny alien plants though.

- - - - -
Robert Crais, mystery writer, former scriptwriter and Clarion graduate, came to visit. We all went for dinner.

- - - - -
End of the week.

Greg Passes the Sneag

More photographs are here

Coming soon. . . Week 2 & Dead Romans

Clarion Log – Week 0.

2007-11-04T21:48:24Z

Before & Travel

Once, when I was in primary school, my friend found a bomb in her garden.

It was a great, rusted thing, buried way back by the fence, where her parents wanted a greenhouse. The police were called. The bomb squad came. My friend and her sister were evacuated to a neighbour’s house. . .and when the street was closed, to the park down the road. She could see the flashing lights from the swings and a policeman brought her ice cream.

Bombs! Police! Ice cream! It all sounded terribly exciting. So I went home and dug for bombs. I didn't find one – my garden had a surprising lack of unexploded ordnances. Secretly, I was glad. Bombs go off after all.

So, back on track:

Before I left for Clarion, I dreamed about my bomb hunting. Repeatedly. Me, digging a damned great hole in the strawberry bed with a pneumatic drill. . .and finding one. And promptly freaking the frigging freak out, with much freakery and a side-serving of panic. At which point the bomb would go off.

I also dreamed I arrived at Clarion -- which was held in beach huts, in Lyme Regis -- only to be told I read the wrong sort of books. The beach huts were off limits, but I might be invited to some of the barbecues.

Yeah. I was slightly nervous about the whole Clarion thing.

I left London wondering if I'd made a dreadful, awful, terrible mistake I would regret for the rest of my life and ohgodwhereismypassporthaveIpackedmytoothbrushaaahhgh!

During the next six weeks, I kept something of a journal on wild scraps of paper. Half the time I forgot to date them, so if events are out of order, forgive me!

The first diary entry:

Thurs. 21 June
What the hell am I doing? Also: why?

This time. . . .

2007-11-04T21:40:36Z

It's November now and I am truly BACK ON THE INTERNET*. No more false alarms.

It's time to catch up.

1. An overdue thank you.

Somewhere there is a wonderful person that made my Clarion time possible by donating a scholarship. I don't know who you are yet, but I hope the good people in San Diego will tell me soon so I can write to you personally. Thank you so very much.

2. To my classmates.

You are all so wonderful. I can't get into our board at the moment, so this is me waving frantically while I slide off the shed roof** How are you all? Where are you all?

3. My long-overdue Clarion Blog starts now: (I'll insert link soon)

4. If I owe you an email (and holy wow, I owe a lot), look for it soon. If you don't get one, come here and kick me. Glancing at my inbox, it also looks like some messages I *thought* I'd sent, didn't get where they were headed. It's very late here and it's cold, so email is tomorrow morning's mission.

- - - - -

_{*With a few hours exception, my internet access has been non-existent since August. Just when I was about to get one thing fixed, another bloody thing broke.}

_{** Um, the only way to connect to the network at the moment is to climb onto the shed roof and tilt an umbrella at my neighbour's house. Chilly, but the early 5th/Nov fireworks are terrific.}

Back online and back in action. Also Lowland Gorillas are Critically Endangered.

2007-09-12T11:50:54Z

My computer died in a very dead way and there was much despair. Thankfully, I'd done a backup a few days before, and when Clarionite Shweta passed through London, we wiped the corrupted Windows and installed Ubuntu. I'm a bit not happy about this, for reasons I won't go into, but at least I have a working laptop. (Thank you Shweta and Nathaniel!

Result: after several failed attempts, I am now back online properly for the first time since Clarion. Which is a blessed relief. My workshop log is coming in the next few days. It is something like 1,500 words for each week + pictures, but work, unfortunately, comes first, closely followed by email-checking, which I haven't really done since June.

- - -
Moving on:

Today, in a few minutes time, this year's IUCN Red List is officially released officially. The embargo actually lifted at 1 pm, so by the time I post this, I'll only be a few seconds early.

Top news: Western Lowland Gorillas have been raised to Critically Endangered.

I hope (and expect) the media to pick up on it.

Now, the Red List has its faults, but it’s decent way of highlighting species for conservation and research attention. I don't always agree with it, but it's better than nothing.

It isn't all that easy to qualify for Critically Endangered status. For any category, there are five criteria (A-E) a species could potentially meet, covering factors including as population declines, geographic range and quantitative analysis. If you have a (Criteria A) 80-90% population decline (observed, estimated or inferred) in the longer of 10 years or 3 generations, that doesn't happen by accident— and for many animals with short generation times, it can be hard to do.

And most of the critically endangered species have us to thank. There's a thought for the day.

And now, lunch.

11pm = 4am

2007-06-23T03:23:45Z

New York is warm, sultry and I do rather suspect that brain is melting out my ears and evaporating. It is 11pm (4am) and I am playing the jetlag defeating game "How Late Can I Remain Awake & Lucid?"

If I start making burbling noises, pleae do not be alarmed.

My cross-Atlantic journey proved boring and uneventful (ie. very pleasant; I do not want things getting exciting at 24,000ft) and I've spent the last two days teak-oiling my parents deck furniture, ripping up ivy, and making a list of everything I accidentally left in London. (One of the things I discovered that I didn't leave behind was sharp-edged and metal and in my hand luggage . . . and has been for at least three other transatlantic/transpacific flights. Consider me coloured a pale shade of concerned.)

- - - -

Have acquired copies of Baker's "Gods & Pawns", CJ Cherryh's "Collected Short Fiction" and Bear's "New Amsterdam", none of which I will have time to read before I set off at 7am tomorrow morning.

Have not acquired "Red Seas Under Red Skies" by Lynch (UK release 21 June). Am mildly peeved. May be good thing, however, as "Lies of Loch Lamora" rocked my socks off to such an extent that I may wear nothing but sandals for the rest of my life. If the sequel is as good, what will I do for footwear?

- - - -
. . . . right, time for sleep.

Computer goes IN the bag

2007-06-20T14:59:09Z

Right, time for Spot-the-laptop to go inside the pillowcase, inside the computer bag, inside the hand luggage rucksack. Of course, when I get to security, I will have to excavate everything remotely electronic. . . .

. . . .

And we're off!

Weather or departure time = T -5hrs

2007-06-20T12:01:28Z

San Diego, according to the BBC.

Day & night temperatures (*C)

Wednesday	32	17
Thursday	33	17
Friday	33	17
Saturday	29	17
Sunday	31	17

17? At night? I am going to melt!

Repack time!

Isn't it good I quite like packing. :)

What you do is take the contents of your wardrobe and dump it on the bed. Then dump half of that on the floor. Push it around a little to make pretty coloured cloth-mountains.

The next step is to scratch your head and wonder about your taste in clothes. Also, why do you own five black t-shirts and exactly zero shorts or swim suits? Doesn't matter-- put it all in the bag.

First rule of packing: To save space, wear bulky things on the plane and your biggest pair of shoes.
Second rule of packing: if you forget anything, you can probably buy later.
- - - - - - -

Updated:

Dear Customs People,

I am not a tea smuggler. I just happen to have six different types of leaf tea in my bag.

I promise that herbal leaf tea is not anything particularly illicit. Also, those 3 jars of marmite? Ignore those. They're not for me, k?

Love,

me

I have a confession to make

2007-06-20T09:09:11Z

I have not been on the internet properly for some time. I have not answered emails, not returned phone calls and, generally, have been nowhere to be found.

The reason for this is: a work deadline from hell. 8.30-7, seven days a week.

The reason for the deadline: um. . .yeah, about that.

I'm going to Clarion.

This Clarion.

_{I am an idiot}

I finished the WORK THING yesterday afternoon; my first flight leaves in less than twelve hours.

I have the fretting, pacing, omgwhatamidoingohthehumanity! nerves like you wouldn't believe!

Packing starts now. So does the Official Clarion Log.

_{aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh}

Teh speel gud notting dai

2007-05-29T18:32:29Z

So far today I have mis-typed

Roster
Analytical
Robust
Proposal
Train
The
Popcorn
Bumblebee
Distribution
Threatened
Marzipan
Prodigal
Of
Argentina
Binoculars
Russia
Character
Sentence
My name

This is possibly because I have had nothing to eat today besides massive amounts of sticky pink candy floss and toffee apples and tea.

Yes, today is the 671st annual Pinner Fair and the supermarket is closed.

BLUE SCREEN OF INSANITY!!! Or "Run, Spot. Run!"

2007-05-17T14:45:14Z

I've had a wee bit of a temper tantrum at a computer this week. Not my computer, I hasten to add. My computer, Spot, is mild mannered and very well behaved. No, this is a new, gleaming, bright and glorious Dell. . . . which is running Microsoft Vista.

Yeah. So never upgrading to Vista. Partitioned harddrives, here I come.

I'm afraid I've had such a temper tantrum, that Spot is currently running Linux off a flashdrive. We may have a few teething problems along the way -- I've only just managed to work out the internet settings and I still find myself completely unable to access all my files on the main harddrive -- but I predict that Linux and I will get along well.
It lets me control my own machine and that is always a bonus.

Also: sooo shiny!

Pretty things:

2007-05-17T14:42:34Z

Pretty thing for Today:

Heliotrope Magazine, Issue 2,

The new issue is out and beautiful and includes poetry by Sonya Taaffe, stunning illustrations by Liz Clarke and stories by Gerard Houarner, Vylar Kaftan and, um. . . me.

loooook! go, now!

Pretty thing for Tomorrow:

After 303 days and a rewrite request, Aeon SF Magazine decided to adopted Brighton Bay, or, to give the story its full title:

Brighton Bay: being an account of sorcery, kidnapping and blackmail conducted by a young lady of quality in the month of October at the Brighton Bay Hotel, 1910

It should be appearing this summer in issue 11. Many thanks to the various people -- they know who they are -- who critted early drafts!

I am wearing my happy hat. Which, incidentally, is blue.

Some times things work out

2007-05-10T08:59:28Z

A quick post full of glee.

Some times things go rotten. And some times things miraculously come together right before disaster.

Now, for various reasons, the Family has all arrived from New York/India.

It's been a good day so far.

Making 350 Pavlovas

2007-05-06T20:28:27Z

It seems I yelled “Free!” too soon. The survey dragged on for an extra week. . . .

Seven weeks in the field, and how many great crested newts did we find?

Two.

But I’ve taken plenty of photographs of toads. Toads, with their wonderful grumpy faces, make me happy.

- - - - -

I have an octogenarian’s birthday party to prepare for: I’m bringing the pavlova meringues.
Tonight, the agenda includes egg whites and sugar and blenders and whisks and microwaves.

Microwaves -- at least my microwaves -- are particularly odd creatures. No matter how often they are cleaned, nor how infrequently they are use, one can always discover dried tomato soup residue on their glass. Tis a mystery why.

- - - -

One of my younger brother’s good friends from school, L, died unexpectedly this week. She was 19. A sweet kid. They think it was a heart aneurysm . . . .

Possibly the result of bulimia.

I looked at the Sunday Times “Style” magazine just now, at the dozen tiny, stick-doll women inside, draped in fashionable-whatever, and threw the damned thing in the recycling. Not that it matters now: it doesn't do anything for L.

Fuck the cult of thin.

- - - -

It's time to catch up on emails now, but afterwards, in honour of L, I am going to go out into the garden, rip up some rhubarb, and whip up a rhubarb and apple and custard thing.

I will then eat it. With lots of cream.

And a pavlova.

The Boat has sailed. You have missed the Boat.

2007-04-23T11:27:00Z

Thanks to work and the plans of the Welsh Assembly to build a bloody great motorway through pristine countryside, I vanished for a while there.

Still travelling for work at the moment and I have ½ an hour of internet a week at 7 quid a pop. (One more week. Then bye-bye motels and pot noodle! Free!)

So far this month, I've had two bits of wonderful news that combined together equal headache and catastrophe. Will there be a happy ending? A compromise? Will everyone end up running off to the Outer Hebrides to live in sheep sheds?
- - - - -
Other thoughts:

GC-newt surveys are really nice when there is no rain and all the ditches dry up. Lovely. Sit by the bank and say, "Yep. No newts here" while getting paid for the pleasure.

SUZE: re: email sent a month ago and not seen until now.

I'm running out of internet time right now, so I can't reply directly. Hoping you see this. Are you joking? File downloaded and I am so all over the situation!

A Godmother, adopted

2007-02-08T21:07:13Z

With great delight, I'll point towards Jay Tomio editor of FantasyBookSpot's Heliotrope Magazine who has let me know that my story "A Godmother's Gift" has found a home.

It should be appearing in the next issue later this month!

Is it unprofessional to "Squee!!" now?

Somehow, it really is 2007

2007-02-04T23:00:26Z

And February.

When did that happen?

Google shows me that Tangentonline.com has reviewed things without me noticing.

Nice things said about Disjointed in the current issue of Ideomancer.

Vaguely nice things said about my story in issue 5 of Fantasy Magazine.

(But does that review mean I can't still be friends with the neo-hippy-happy-acid-trippers from my old high school? How will I tell them!? ::is sad::)

Today I

2006-12-04T12:17:23Z

-- Purchased the 1937 edition of "Webster's Royal Red Book (incorporating Boyles Court Guide".

This makes me happy. It also informs me that "Indian Princes entitled to a salute of 11 guns" should be addressed as "His Highness"

This is a FACT for your everyday life.

-- Booked Tickets.

Forget the chaos of Xmas-time London.

It's time to abuse the weak $. And visit the family, of course.

--Volunteered at Oxfam

Actually, I haven't done that yet, but it's up next.

If they put me on the till, I shall cry.

--Selected my new camera.

Which is exactly the same as the old one. Except newer and less broken.

-- Admired Ideomancer
And not just because "Disjointed" is in December's issue.
Though that made me happy, too.

All in all, a Good Monday.

Mr Toad Hates You

2006-11-20T20:04:51Z

With my camera bust and my hard drive nearly full, I though it was high time to go through my photos.

I discovered I have:

83 portraits of belligerent-looking frogs and toads and sundry reptiles,
three pictures of my family
exactly zero of me.

This Toad Hates Everyone:

The moral of this story? I'm probably not a toad.

French Gravity

2006-11-20T19:21:11Z

You know, Paris is a lot like London: except it has wider streets, a rickety-looking working Metro (as opposed to a swish-looking, ever-delayed Tube), and more gravity.

Alas, for my poor camera and iPod.

R

2006-11-20T18:56:31Z

R: or my life right now.

Here's a snippet of my life; the entire week has been like this.
Red = my code input
Black = stats output (R)
Blue = Me talking to R

>grass<-read.delim("C:\\Data\\grasshopperactivity.txt",header=T")
>attach(grass)
>names(grass)

[1] "rep"          "pop"          "ml"         "d.alive"      "ma.y.n"      "ma.tot"     "days.to"
[8] "stat"         "loco"         "acti"         "feed"         "groom"        "maint"        "tend"
[15] "call"         "singcall"     "allsing"      "song.Ib"      "song.II"      "song.III"     "att.mo"
[22] "cop"

> model1<-glm(ma.tot~d.alive*acti*tend*call*allsing*att.mo,poisson)

Error: NA/NaN/Inf in foreign function call (arg 1)
In addition: Warning message:
step size truncated due to divergence
Me: Fine, don't want to play nice? I can handle it. I can take the pressure.

> model1<-glm(ma.tot~d.alive*acti*tend*call*allsing,poisson)
> summary(model1)

THREE HOURS LATER

Coefficients:
            Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
(Intercept) -3.0559     1.3125 -2.328   0.0199 *
d.alive       0.4110     0.2233   1.840   0.0657 .
call          7.1173     3.5875   1.984   0.0473 *
---

Me: So, stats package, what you're telling me is that I spent six months of my life conducting this experiment, and only grasshopper chripping is significant? Huh? Is that what you're telling me, Punk!

>syntax error

Me: Great. Nice. That's gonna make a good discussion. Also, why won't you let me do binomial lmer models on my locust data? Please? Or give me a meaningful error message instead of gobbldygook?

>syntax error
- - - - -

*sigh* I keep telling myself it will soon be over.
Really, it could be worse. At least it's giving me something meaningful.
Occasionally.

Trekking the Cornish Coast

2006-11-20T18:53:01Z

Not as hilly as Devon, but oh! the harbours. Mist and blue and boats.