[Clarion West 2k1, week 4. It's not just for breakfast anymore.]

The ending of my previous entry was not foreshadowing, even though it could be interpretted as such. The worst of the week really was over. Even though we still hadn't arrived at:

Friday the 13th.

Seven hours of delicious sleep. I woke up just before 8am, showered, and dashed off to class. I noticed that one of my fellow Clarionites had written on her white board (we all have little white boards on the doors to our rooms) that *she* had just pulled an all-nighter. My heart went out to her, having just gone through that peculiar kind of nastiness the day before, myself.

Class was great, as usual. Connie addressed foreshadowing as a plot device. She quoted Opus the Penguin, late of Bloom County:

"Foreshadowing... your key to quality literature."

Connie recommended against the use of Dickensian-style foreshadowing ("Little did she know that the man she was about to meet would change her life forever"). However, she heartily endorses what I guess you could call Chekovian-style foreshadowing (my term, not hers): planting clues early on that you will use later in the story.

(Checkov has been noted as saying that if you see a pistol over the mantle in act one, then the pistol should be fired before the end of act three. There is a corollary to this, and the corollary is what Connie addressed: if a pistol goes off in act three, you should see the pistol at some point during act one.)

I won't go into detail on the lecture here today. However, here are a couple of highlights:

* As a general rule, every scene must have *two* purposes... one of which is to further the plot.

* If you receive a detailed rejection letter from a story you have submitted for publication, this is not a bad thing. If you're cool with the suggestions, go ahead and make the changes and re-submit with a cover letter. And, be sure to send the piece to other marets, as appropriate. Don't give up after only one try.

* Connie joked that you can't consider yourself a real writer until you "kill a magazine" -- you sell your story to a publication that then goes out of business before they print it. :-) We have a couple folks in our Clarion class who have already "killed a magazine".

Connie has been encouraging all of us to attend "WorldCon" -- which I think is short for the World Science Fiction Convention. It's a professional convention; not what most people think of when they think about sci-fi fan or "star trek" conventions.

[Attention all y'all who are writing or want to write science fiction: you really owe it to yourself to attend this event.]

Among other things, this is where the Hugos are awarded -- in fact, members of the convention vote on the Hugo awards. It is *the* event of the science fiction writing profession.

This year's WorldCon is being held in Philadelphia over Labor Day weekend. Check out their website.

Anyway, Connie gave us an important tip regarding the etiquette for when you bump into authors at cons and elsewhere, whom you have met before. She told us that when we see her, for example, at the cons, we should make a point of always reminding her of who we are when we re-introduce ourselves. So, we shouldn't go up to Connie and say "Hi, remember me?!" Nodding and smiling doesn't distinguish you, and authors meet many, many people over the years.

Instead, say something like, "Hi, I'm Allan and I was one of your Clarion students in Seattle, the one who... " People don't always remember other people out of context; give them the context, and they'll have a better time of remembering who you are. She then told us a few stories as to why this can be important.

The critiques during class were wonderful. Fantastic. I received the strongest feedback yet on ways I can improve my story to make it ready for submission. It may have helped that I gave them more to work with this time than I had with my previous piece. Nonetheless, I also think that the critiques are getting sharper; more focused. This was very exciting.

I thought the critiques were generally helpful and on target for all of the stories, not just mine... but, you'd have to ask the other writers if they agree. :-)

After class, Connie took us all to lunch. Woo-hoo! We went to "Bill's Off Broadway", the same place where we had our farewell lunch with Brad. [Note to future Clarions: if you go to Bill's, stick with the pizza.] Once again, the conversation was great.

My conference was scheduled for right after lunch. We talked about the story I'd just handed in as well as the story I'd handed in the previous week ("Derivative" -- the humor piece about the Ms. Solar System contest). She was very helpful, pointing out things I can do to make these two stories more compelling, and she encouraged me to polish them up and send them out. I ran an idea by her for how I might address some issues with "Broken Connection" (the story I workshopped on Monday), and she seemed to think that the new opening I proposed would work much better.

After my conference with Connie, I found a conversation already-in-progress in our 12th Floor lounge with the editors from two well-known e-publishers in the sci-fi field. They were talking about the direction the industry is taking with regard to e-books and webzines.

The rest of the afternoon was generally decompression time. We went to the Friday Clarion party where a number of notables in the industry joined us, we bade our good-byes to Connie (and presented her with going-away presents) and then it was back to the dorms. Had an enjoyable late-night bull session, then off to bed at around 2am.

Week four was definitely the most trying week for me so far. It may also have seen both my worst and my best writing at Clarion to date. There are only two weeks left of the program, but that feels about right. I look forward to cranking it up a notch... and then retrenching for a bit.