Street art in Jaco, across from the sushi restaurant.What I worked on:
1007 words on Circus in the Bloodwarm Rain, although I really need to start going back and making some of the early parts make more sense. Right now there’s an awful lot of leaping about between the original short story it’s based on (news of that coming soon) and the final outline for the novel.
1005 words on Prairiedog Town (working title)
Total wordcount: 2012, but there’s still time to get a little more in
Today’s new Spanish words: la abeja (the bee), cienca ficción (science fiction), mamar (to suck, as it mother’s milk), el mamon (a kind of fruit), el lavavavillas (the dishwasher), el rastro (the flea market).
We walked down to the farmer’s market in the morning and bought lovely fruit, including bananas and rambutan. After some work in the afternoon, we took a swim break and tried out the pool here, which was delicious. But holy cow, I’d forgotten how tiring swimming can be, and what it’s like to step out of the water and feel gravity reclaiming what was just light and buoyant.
Later on, we went for an evening walk and were forced by rain into a sushi restaurant where we had terrific sushi (although the spicy tuna was a bit too much for me). We’ve been told that Jaco picks up considerably during the weekends, when everyone from San Jose comes down to spend some time here, and it does seem a good bit livelier this evening.
And a little translating! I’ve started “Panecillo tostado, con devoción para acompaña” and am undoubtedly mangling it considerably, all in the name of practice.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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Documents of Tabat: Fashions of Tabat
What are the documents of Tabat? In an early version of the book, I had a number of interstitial pieces, each a document produced by the city: playbills, advertisements, guide book entries. They had to be cut but I kept them for web-use. I hope you enjoy this installment, but you’ll have to read Beasts of Tabat to get the full significance. -Cat
An Instructive Listing of the Fashions of Tabat, being Pamphlet #2 of the first series of “A Visitor’s Guide to Tabat,” Spinner Press, author unknown.
Tabat, like any city, has fashions that distinguish it, often shaped by the city’s history and resources. To look like one of the natives, you may want to purchase one or more of the following to wear.
Feather cockades, worn pinned to the breast or on a hat, represent a long tradition in the city. The explorers of the early expedition Perseverance found a river of feathers, cast off by vast flocks of waterfowl. They brought back sackfuls of the varicolored feathers to the city and it became customary to show one’s support for one expedition or another by wearing the cockades. In recent times they have become associated with different political powers in the city and with the coming of the elections, they are widely used to indicate one’s party affiliation.
Rain market hats, wide-brimmed and tightly woven of purple reeds, are seen in abundance on the streets of Tabat and are as functional and cheap as they are picturesque. Some sellers sell hats with designs or slogans painted upon them, often distributing the latter at political rallies.
Great-coats, woven of wool or made of dyed fur, are traditional gear for Merchants, Explorers, and others who travel widely. Their styles may vary from year to year in matters like buttons, pocket cut, or thickness of piping, but generally they remain the same in overall look.
Dandies of either sex prize the fine lace gloves produced by the Altos factory, where they are woven by the large spiders exclusive to Altos use by order of the Duke. If on the street outside where they are housed in early morning or evening, linger to hear their haunting song.
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Colette's husband used to lock her in an attic to force her to write. Don't assume a mentor is going to go that far. You're the only one who determines how productive (or not) you are.One of the things that sometimes comes up when talking to new writers is the question, “How do I acquire a mentor?” There’s a glazed and desperate look in the eyes of each querier, and sometimes a bit of professional jealousy, because occasionally we see people in positions where we’re not convinced they really should be, and an easy explanation is that a mentor’s personal pull helped get them there.
Well, maybe. But I don’t know that the kind of mentor people are envisioning really happens that often. They’re thinking of a wise, kindly figure who will guide their career through writing advice, secure them spots in anthologies and magazines, and make sure they appear on award ballots.
That’s pretty goddamn rare, and sometimes what one is attributing to the influence of a mentor is actually the writer’s hard work and talent for networking. And networking helps a lot — but it can’t substitute for enough skill to write at the professional level, at least in my opinion.
I do have people who have helped me along, and they’ve been great. I don’t think of any of them in this light, though. They’re people I can go to for the occasional sanity check or word of encouragement, sure. But are they out there sedulously working away on my behalf? No. They have their own careers to build, their own projects to promote, their own words to write.
You can’t just wait for a mentor to arrive. Or even just mail someone and say, “I want you to be my mentor.” You need to a) be writing and b) be getting yourself out there through publications, participation in social networks and message boards, and working with other people. One of the most valuable things I did for myself was agreeing to help edit Fantasy Magazine. Beside teaching me a ton, it brought me in contact with a number of people. I even got to hold a manuscript from Tanith Lee in my hands and email her how excited I was to be publishing something from her.
And take classes, for Pete’s sake. That’s one of the best ways to not just improve your craft, but do a little networking on the side. I tell my students to let me know when they publish something so I can spread it on social networks, although that’s a somewhat self-serving act – it helps me publicize my classes when I’m able to point to people getting published and take some smidgen of unwonted credit for it. 😉
Let’s say you do find a writer who’s further along in their career path than you are, and who seems to be amenable to providing you some guidance. What then? Well, be a good mentee and help them help you. Here are my suggestions for doing so.
Be proactive. Don’t limply wait for a mentor to lift you up. A mentor is not an excuse to stop working on your own behalf. Do shit. Look for opportunities to get your name out there, just as you would without a mentor.
Be responsive. Answer e-mails. Let them know what you’re up to. Don’t be one of those flakey writers who vanish for months and then reappear with daisies in their hair, acting as though they had never been gone. Don’t let suggestions slide by without acknowledgement.
Be appreciative. Say thank you or acknowledge their efforts in other ways. They don’t have a quota of people they need to help each month. Every minute spent helping you is being taken from their own store of work time, and for all of us, that’s a valuable commodity.
Listen. If your mentor suggests something, either do it or tell them why you’re not (and have a good rationale for that). (See also: Be responsive.)
Be pleasant to work with. Save the cynical or curmudgeonly attitude for elsewhere, and don’t be a sad sack bemoaning your own lack of talent just so you can evoke reassurances. Positivity, cheerfulness, and good humor make for someone who’s pleasant to help – negativity, gloom, and humorlessness make it a discouraging, uphill battle.
Be a good sport. A mentor has their own life. And they may have other people they’re helping. In fact, if they’re helping you, they probably do. Don’t act like a jealous sibling if they’re paying attention to someone else.
Be a good citizen. It’s never too early to start paying it forward, to helping other new writers publicize their work. Volunteer to read slush or help staff tables at a convention. One of the best ways to promote yourself is by promoting other people, even though that may seem paradoxical.
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