[Clarion West 2k1, week 6: only four days of class left....]

Tuesday.

Class was relatively short, insofar as we only had three stories to crit and they were on the short side (most of us are turning in short-shorts this week). Alas, we collected the manuscripts to be read for Wednesday, and there were five (instead of the usual four), one of which was ten thousand words long. This elicited some groans, but all this really meant was that our reading load was back up to about the same level as a typical day in earlier weeks, since most of the other stories were short.

Jack gave us an excellent lecture on the role that publicity folks play in selling a book: what they do, what works, what doesn't. (As an interesting side-note that came out of his lecture, it came up that Ray Bradbury continues to get more fan mail than any other spec fic author at his publishing house. It seems to me that industry types might deride the classic style and the not-necessarily-scientifically-correct premises of the golden agers, but the fact remains that the reading public ponies up the bucks for those kinds of authors.)

Key distinctions in lecture: no publicity is bad publicity. Any publicity is good publicity. Publicity is not the same as marketing, and neither of those are the same as advertising. The publicity department of a major publisher is primarily concerned with getting review copies (galleys) out there to be read by influential reviewers, and with setting up book tours for authors who have a proven track record.

Advice for writers: as you develop a fan base, be nice to them. They can help you to build up momentum for your projects as they come out. (Sounds basic, but there's much more to it than that....)

For lunch, we went to Dick's again; this time, because Jack was able to make it, and that was his preference. That was fine by me, although in retrospect I think I gained about eighty pounds by eating there two days in a row.

That night, most of us made our way to Elliott Bay Books to catch Jack's reading. I have to say, he has an amazing style when it comes to presenting his work. He read a portion of his latest novel, Going Going Gone, and blew the crowd away. I was particularly captivated by the alternate history of his story, in which it was President Nixon assassinated in 1963, and President Lodge was running for re-election as the story opened up in 1968. The language was exquisite, and I'd have bought the book then and there if it weren't for the fact that I'd just recently bought several other books of his that I haven't had a chance to read, yet. :-)

That evening, i still hadn't come up with a story idea for the story I'd have to turn in on Thursday morning (keep in mind that, at this point, I would only have Wednesday night to write it), and I still hadn't read the stories for critique. So, when I walked by the room where a bunch of fellow Clarionites were playing poker, I reluctantly had to... join them, of course.

Didn't generate any solid idea of what I'd write the next day, but toyed with an idea I'd had for a while, set on Gilligan's Planet. Rejected it, but couldn't get any further.

Read those five stories (starting with the long one), and went to bed very, very late.

Sleep deprivation. Blech. This is the last week, though, so I can make it. Right? Just plow through for a few more days.