Last week was fairly interesting. Over the weekend I knew almost immediately that something was wrong with me, so I told my boss I’d work from home on Monday to make sure I had everything I needed on hand; I’ve been dealing with an ongoing health issue that’s easier to manage from home. So I put in my nine hours, and by the end of it I wasn’t feeling very well. By 5 PM I felt so cold I was shivering, and by 8 PM or so I had a fever of 102. Ryan took me to the emergency room at around 9:30.
To make a long story short, it turns out I had some kind of bacterial infection and an internal problem that’s relatively easy to clear up. I was given antibiotics and sent on my way. The rest of the week was spent flushing the infection from my system and gradually getting better. I was tired most of last week, and so much of my time revolved around dealing with health stuff that I simply didn’t have much energy for anything else. So that’s why I disappeared from the blog last week, and why I’m a little late coming back this week. Hopefully the worst of my health issues are behind me for now, but I’ll try to let you know if something is happening a bit more quickly.
In the meantime, I hope it’s back to business as usual with the blog here. I’m still planning four posts a week — a general interest post, two AFI movie reviews (at least until I’ve caught up) and a bit of short fiction from a project I’m working on. I’m really hoping to sharpen my movie reviews; I love the idea of exploring these stories that are widely regarded as the best examples of American cinema and breaking down why they’ve struck such a deep chord with audiences throughout decades. And while I know appreciating art is largely a personal affair, I think there’s something in the discussion of it that helps us to understand its message a little better.
Mostly, I’m hoping to get better at reviewing because I’d like to expand the reviews to furry fiction. This is a post for another time, but I think it’s important to apply the same kind of standards inside the fandom that we do for entertainment of a broader genre. I’d like to seriously discuss the writing of our little internet community as an art form — trends that tend to pop up among and between writers, common themes in ‘modern’ furry fiction, what our writers tend to do well and where we could be better. I think that level of discussion and scrutiny could help us out, or at least make us more aware of what we want out of our writing.
Right now, though, I’d like to talk about my own writing! I’ve been posting the “Unstable Future” snippets for Friday fiction the past few weeks to get my head around two of the main characters. My ultimate goal with it is to try and launch an ‘episodic’ storytelling model, where short stories are released at the same time every week for a certain length of time. Each short story is self-contained, somewhat, but also carries a larger arc forward until that too is completed. That marks the end of a ‘season’, and depending on the response further seasons are written.
I think this is a model that could work well, and “Unstable Future” is a great story to start with. In order to try and kick-start myself into writing it, I’ve decided to make it my project for the Clarion Write-A-Thon. The Write-A-Thon is a great fundraising drive for Clarion and Clarion West, a pair of six-week workshops where aspiring genre writers are taught various aspects of the craft and business of writing from folks who’ve made it. This year some lucky folks will be taught by the likes of Neil Gaiman and Joe Hill!
However, in order to make the whole thing work and to make sure the people who deserve to be there can actually afford to be there, a little help is needed. The Write-A-Thon is a great way to do that; each writer makes a goal for the duration of the drive and posts excerpts and updates to his personal drive webpage. And his or her audience can make either flat donations of pledges based on word count. It’s a lot of fun, and a great way to meet some of the folks associated with Clarion. A lot of the people who participate are Clarion graduates!
I’ll be writing at least 25,000 words of “Unstable Future” for Clarion, and I would like your help to spur me on. I’ll be posting daily updates here on the blog, and excerps of the story at least once a week. If you would be so kind as to offer a small donation — like, say, $1.00 for every thousand words — I’d very much appreciate it. I’m setting a goal of raising $500 for Clarion this year, and I’d love to make it.
Here’s my author’s page, where you can take a look at my progress and make donations: http://clarionwriteathon.org/members/profile.php?writerid=177495
All right, I think that’s it for now. I have quite a lot of writing to do in order to catch up to things, and I’d better get started.
From the Desk of Jakebe T. Rabbit 