Cat reports on how the first co-cleaning session went, talks about upcoming Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers events and classes, and then discusses goal-setting and achievement-celebrating for writers, showing three examples.
This weekend’s events include Catherine Lundoff’s So You Want to Write an Anthology class (http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/so-yo…) and Fran Wilde’s Journaling for Creativity workshop (http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/journ…) as well as a co-writing session and our first Netflix movie night. Limited enrollment; 3 free scholarships available in each class. For more info on how to join the fun, you can go to http://patreon.com/catrambo for info on supporting Cat or http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/join-… for chat server scholarships.
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We’ve (as in two humans, two cats, a briefly lived betta, and assorted temporary insects) lived in this space since 2001. While I’ve decluttered and cleaned before, cruft inevitably creeps in. An odd little ball colored red, white, and blue. Countless keys. Sharpies in a rainbow of colors. Twists and ties and clips. Twenty years after my D&D days, there’s still a few polyhedrals rolling around.
Many things have memories attached, and discarding the object sometimes feels like discarding the memory. The paperweight I bought in Prague while traveling to train Eastern Europeans about network security software. A tin butterfly from our time in Mexico when I was a child. The sequinned baby shoes I use as a prop in the flash class. I feel as though if I put them aside I may lose the thing that triggers the memory.
While I’m not ditching everything, a lot of these are getting digitized. I take a few pictures with my camera and stick it aside. Here’s an example of a book I’ve been carrying around since high days. My paternal grandmother got it for me when I expressed an interest in folk tales and folk songs. I drew on it heavily when writing songs for Armageddon, sometimes adapting songs outright, otherwise creating ones patterned after the originals.
It’s a hefty doorstop of a book. I suspect I’ll be able to find this knowledge, or comparable stuff, on the net whenever I need to. But at the same time, the object holds memories: sitting in my room in high school, reading through it, while the rain drummed on the roof and the locust tree outside my window tapped its long fingers on the glass, for one. Performing songs based on it as my bard on Armageddon, purple-haired, seemingly bemused but secretly sharp, Karaluvian Fale. I take more than just a photo of the dustjacket: one of the inside so I can see the font, another of an illustration, one of an enigmatic and very scrawly note. Enough that I’ll be able to evoke it, access those memories again if I want to.
What’s the best way to preserve these images? I haven’t gotten that far yet. For now I’m saving and tagging, and trying to shrink down the mass of physical stuff attached to my life.
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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."
(horror, flash fiction) 2. Zombies can turn up anywhere. If your mom dies in her sleep, she’ll become a zombie that doesn’t care whose brain she’s (slowly) eating.
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