Monthly Archive for March, 2010

Twittertrope

Published on March 27, 2010.

I was updating my submission tracker on Duotrope this morning, after receiving a rejection from Writers of the Future. I was tweeting about the rejection when I had a slight epiphany. I realized how cool it would be if Duotrope had Twitter integration. They don’t, and as I discovered, neither do they have any presence on Twitter. I decided then and there that something must be done to correct this oversight.

After an hour or two of hacking, in between a heated battle between myself and my XBox, I finished today’s secret project: the unofficial Duotrope Twitterfeed.

Why did I do this? Well, all too often I come across writers who have never heard of Duotrope. I know, right? Twitter is a good way to boost the signal. I also am nerdy enough that I like seeing what’s changing in the fiction landscape on a regular basis and Duotrope is the place to go for that.

For the technically inclined, this is powered by a 140 line perl script (including comments and whitespace) that downloads the RSS feed from Duotrope every 30 minutes or so and checks for new updates. Every new item, as determined by the feed’s guid, has a short url generated for it by way of is.gd, has its description shorted as necessary and is then posted to Twitter.

DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with Duotrope in any way. I’m just a fan of their service and have taken it upon myself to spread the word about them.

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Why do they always use blue cups?

Published on March 21, 2010.

Still swamped with work and Clarion preparation, but I couldn’t help sharing this little ditty I just slapped together.

In the speculative fiction genre, the fen are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the readers, who read fiction, and the writers, who tell lies for a living. These are their stories.

Why yes, we do watch lots and lots of Law & Order. Why do you ask?

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Clarion 2010

Published on March 15, 2010.

I’ve been sent word that I can publicly announce the news I’ve been sitting on since last week: I have been accepted into the 2010 Clarion Workshop.

More later, after the celebration has ended.

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Clarion 2010

Published on March 7, 2010.

Believe it or not, I’m still a little under the weather. I’m beginning to suspect I had the hamthrax. Five weeks out and I’m just now starting to feel like myself again. All it really means is that I’m sleeping way more than usual, drinking a gallon of water a day, and a bit behind in my correspondence.

So better late than never, I’m happy to announce that I’ve applied to Clarion and Clarion West. These are kind of a big deal as far as writing workshops go. They receive hundreds of applicants every year and only a handful are accepted. The odds are not in my favor but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Even if I do get accepted, there are a lot of obstacles standing in my way. There’s the house for sale in Illinois and a few lingering divorce debts that must be paid before anything else. I’m working hard at that and things are moving in the right direction. Then there’s taking six weeks off of work. I think I can pull that off, but it means I’m going to be pulling a lot of long hours in the months beforehand to make up for it. A worthy sacrifice, if I get the call.

I only have one hard deadline coming up in March. The next quarter of Writers of the Future closes at the end of the month and I plan to have a third consecutive story ready for them. Aside from that I’ll be doing lots and lots of editing. I’m calling a moratorium on new stories until I get some of these drafts revised and into a submission-worthy state.

Good luck shout outs to my tribe mates, Christie and John, who also applied to Clarion. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for all of us.

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