A Wayward Wormhole Origin Story

September 13, 2024
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Have you ever had a ridiculously lofty desire buried so deep in your psyche that you’ve never mentioned it to anyone? That’s what the Wayward Wormhole is for me.

Immersing myself into a world of writers where everyone is as obsessed, driven, and crazy about language and story for weeks at a time is my ultimate happy place. That passionate kiss of at a three-day conference only stoked my desire for more. I applied to some of the greats: Clarion and Odyssey and vowed to apply to Viable Paradise and Launch Pad as schedule and finances permit, but I’ve yet to receive an acceptance from any of them. Is that a reflection of my writing? Maybe…but they’re all incredibly popular and competitive. The sheer talent from the other applicants is intimidating. I’m not a natural. I’m a writer who makes all the usual mistakes and has to fight my way up the rejection ladder. On the flip side, I love learning about writing, and I’m damn stubborn, so I’ll keep going as long as I’m having fun.

Tired of waiting for an acceptance and finding that I aged with every passing year, I started giving myself an education from the many instructors that graced the workshops I wanted to attend. That’s where Cat Rambo came in. Their Academy for Wayward Writers was the perfect training ground for my struggling career as a writer. They brought in Tobias Buckell, Michael Underwood, Sarah Pinsker, Ann Leckie, Kate Heartfield, and Jamie Lackey, not to mention all the classes put together by Cat themselves. And it was great.

But it still wasn’t the deep end I dreamed about. Then, one day all the time spent on Cat’s Patreon and Discord brought the opportunity of a lifetime—a month of November—an intensive workshop in Spain. Was anyone interested? I was. Did she have a location? No. So I looked for one. I found a castle (A CASTLE!). The next step was financial viability—was a venture like this something that could at least pay for itself? Spreadsheet time. The numbers said it could. We wouldn’t get rich, but we could offer a new, high-level intensive writing workshop offering access to exceptional instructors, and bring together fellow writers who were as eager to help each other succeed as you are to helping them. That’s what it’s all about!

Cat received a good deal of flack over the location’s lack of accessibility, and that was my fault. To anyone who wanted to attend and couldn’t, I can only apologize and say we are committed to doing better with each upcoming workshop.

Spending last November with Cat Rambo, Ann Leckie, Sarah Pinsker, and Tobias Buckell, along with eleven excellent writers in their twenties, thirties, fifties, and up, from four different countries, gave my confidence a much-needed boost, and with that, my writing leaped forward. We’re kept the Ride or Die Writing Group together in 2024, and students are getting published!

Cat Rambo has an amazing array of friends in the SFF community. They’ve all experienced her kindness, generosity, and balanced sense of right and wrong.

We’re heading to New Mexico this November with Arley Sorg, Minister Faust, Donald Maass, C.C. Finlay, plus a slate of students eager to repeat the magic from last year.

I can’t believe this is my life. Maybe we’ll see you there one day!

One Response

Cat Rambo says:

September 18, 2024 at 7:39 am

From Cat’s side of things: Janet made the Wormhole happen, and I absolutely couldn’t have done it without her. Wait till you see what we have cooked up for 2025 – I just got the email confirming one of the instructors and I am SO stoked.

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Social Media: Amazon Affiliate Program Changes and A Fresh Crop of Social Media Links

March 11, 2013

The Amazon Affiliate Program: What’s Changed Recently

You may have heard that Amazon has changed its terms for its affiliate program. Here is the change.

“In addition, notwithstanding the advertising fee rates described on this page or anything to the contrary contained in this Operating Agreement, if we determine you are primarily promoting free Kindle eBooks (i.e., eBooks for which the customer purchase price is $0.00), YOU WILL NOT BE ELIGIBLE TO EARN ANY ADVERTISING FEES DURING ANY MONTH IN WHICH YOU MEET THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS:
(a) 20,000 or more free Kindle eBooks are ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links; and
(b) At least 80% of all Kindle eBooks ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links are free Kindle eBooks.”

This affects people who rely on posting free books as part of their business model. The reason you’d drive traffic to free books is because Amazon’s rates change depending on the total number of books sold.

For example, let’s say I sell some books for Amazon by blogging about a book and pointing to Amazon with an affiliate link, a specially constructed URL that points to the book on Amazon. I get a very small percentage of each sale. That percentage can differ according to what merchandise it is, but it also differs according to how many items I’ve sold that month if it falls in the “General Product” category.

So let’s say I do that. Perhaps I mention that I often use Samuel R. Delany’s wonderful About Writing in teaching. Over the course of a month, three people buy the book (in my experience this is an optimistic estimate. Let’s say that’s all the traffic I drive this month. Because I’ve only sold 3, my percentage is 4%.

But let’s say I also blogged about a bunch of free stuff and people bought books through the same sort of affiliate link. Let’s say I am incredibly diligent about this and sell 628 free books. That 628+3 moves me into the 8% tier – double that original 4%.

Which can start to add up if you’re making some secondary sales, where folks are ordering not the book you linked to, but still poking around on Amazon and buying other things.

So that, in a nutshell, is the Amazon change. If it’s all goobledygook to you, you probably are not one of the people that need to worry about it. And what does that have to do with social media? The answer is that social media shares are how some affiliates drive traffic.

The best of links recently saved to use in my Building an Online Presence for Writers and Blogging and Social Networking 101 classes:
You can follow all my social media links on Delicious.

Pinterest is a social network I’m still find a lot of reasons to like. I use it to provide a regularly changing source of visual interest for this blog as well as to organize some of my blog posts like posts on writing or posts on social networking.

Here’s discussion of a tool, Pingraphy, that you can use to schedule pins.
Here’s how to use group boards on Pinterest to get more exposure.

A study on what increases Twitter followers. No surprise here: positivity and informational content.

How to use a press release to increase your online visibility.

Online book discovery is something market-minded writers need to pay attention to. Here’s why it’s currently not working well.

Obscurity: A Better Way to Think About Your Data than “Privacy.” An interesting piece by Woodrow Hartzog and Evan Selinger about online life and privacy concerns.

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Teaser: More from Laurel Finch

February 14, 2014

Illustration to accompany steampunk snippet by speculative fiction writer Cat Rambo — Interested in learning how to get opportunities to interview writers and publish the results as well as has to conduct yourself in an interview? I've got a one hour class coming up on just that, on February 19, 7-8 PM PST.

This is the steampunk world (Altered America) I’ve been writing in lately, and I’m pleased to say Beneath Ceaseless Skies just took another of the stories set in it, “So Little Comfort.” The title of this story is “Laurel Finch, Laurel Finch, Where Do You Wander?”

She was awake. She jolted upright, disturbing Laurel, who said something drowsily. Jemina stroked her hair with her right hand, settled the child back into her lap. Her heart still hammered uncomfortably.

She looked out the window into the darkness and could see only the reflection of the car’s interior for a moment. Then as her eyes picked out detail, she saw the stars hanging far overhead, the blaze of the Milky Way, a curdle of starlight spilling over the plains that rolled out as far as the eye could see.

Chuggadrum, chuggadrum, the sound of the wheels underfoot, the everpresent vibration working its way through her body as they hurtled through the night towards Seattle.

They’d promised her a laboratory of her own. A budget. Assistants.

Things she could do without interference. That was worth a lot, for a woman in a field that held so few other of her sex.

“I have nightmares sometimes too,” Laurel said.

Jemina’s hand sleeked over the curve of Laurel’s skull, cloth sliding over glossy hair.
“We all do.”

“What are yours about?”

“The war. What about yours?”

Laurel lay silent so long that Jemina thought she had gone back to sleep. But finally she said, “How my parents died.”

Jemina’s fingers stilled as though frozen. She waited.

“We were in the house and they came,” Laurel said. “My uncle said they were supposed to stay on the battlefield and no one knew they went the wrong way.”

Her voice was subdued, thoughtful.

“It would have been all right, but papa heard them at the door and he went and opened it. That was how they got in.”

Jemina saw in her mind’s eye, despite her attempt to force it away, the scene: the man mowed down, devoured with that frightening completeness that zombies had, before they moved on to the rest of the house…

“How did you get away?” she asked.

“I jumped out the window and ran away. I tried to get my brother first, but it was too late, so I ran.”

“Your brother?”

“He was just a baby. He couldn’t run.” Laurel moved her head in slow negation. “Too late.”

Jemina closed her eyes, feeling the story wrenching at her heart.

These things happened in war. They were sad, yes, but unavoidable.

The wheels screeched as the train unexpectedly slowed. Both of them sat up to look out the window.

“Whose are those men?” Laurel asked.

“I don’t know.” But she suspected the worst, given the fact that the group had their bandanas tugged up around their faces, that many had pistols or Springfield rifles in their hands.

“They’re bandits!” Laurel’s voice was excited.

“Yes,” Jemina admitted.

They waited. Around them, everyone was abuzz, but stayed in their seats.

The front door of the car swung open and two men entered, both holding pistols, red cloth masking everything except their eyes. Both were hatless, their stringy hair matted with dust and sweat.

“We’re looking for a fellow name of J. Iarainn,” one called to the car at large. “You here, Mr. Iarainn? If not, I’m going to start shooting people one by one, cause according to the manifest, you’re in this car.”

Jeminia held up a hand. “I am Jemina Iarainn.”

Her gender astonished them. They squinted at her before exchanging glances.

“You’re headed to Seattle and the War Institute to work? Some kinda necromancery?”

“Yes to Seattle, yes to the War Institute. No to necromancy. I hold joint degrees in medicine and engineering, specializing in artificial limbs.”

Exasperation kept her calm. Why should these dunces not believe a female scientist could exist? And necromancy — she was, by far, tired of that label. She worked with devices for the products of such technology, but she wielded the forces of science, of steam and electricity and phlogiston.

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