Last year was the year of attending cons for me. I was at five, all told: New York Comicon, Wiscon, Readercon, Wizardworld Chicago, and World Fantasy.

This year, however, I will be attending only one, my usual, World Fantasy. I will be a Clarion West during Readercon and San Diego Comicon, both cons I was considering attending, and I will miss NY Comicon this year.

But World Fantasy is my favorite, and the one I feel most comfortable at, and maybe, by then, I’ll have another sale under my belt. I can only hope.

If you’re going, I will probably see you there.

Life continues to be a rollercoaster lately, and my hopes for 2008 being more calm and settled seem to be hopeless right now. What helps things is that there is some good news along with the bad, but really, I could use some regularity.

Bad news first:

My mother has cancer. I hesitated posting about this because it’s personal, but it’s happening and it’s a big part of my life right now, and it will continue to be so for the coming months. She has adenocarcinoma of the lung and she’s started chemotherapy.

It was a shock at first, but right now the family is being optimistic. Because we have to be, and because my mother needs that. She’s a trooper. She is adamant that she’s going to beat this thing and she’s being strong. How can we be anything less?

The chemo is rough, though, and she’s only now experiencing the first effects. But she has support – all of us and her friends and I hope that it will make a difference.

I am not a religious person, but I would appreciate people’s thoughts, and indeed prayers, if you feel like it.

The good news:

I was accepted to the <a href=”http://www.clarionwest.org/”>Clarion West Writer’s Workshop</a> and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, I will be attending this summer.

Clarion is something I’ve thought about for a long time and gone back and forth about in the past. Oftentimes work was uncooperative, or my financial situation. This year I’ve run out of excuses. And I want to go. I feel like I need to go. So, I am.

I’m really looking forward to it. Chuck Palahniuk is one of the instructors, so is Connie Willis. It should be a great time. And I will be following in the footsteps of some of my friends – Eugene and Erin and Kris and many others.

So, wish me luck.

Also, advice would be appreciated.

More to come later…

I haven’t done a writing post in some time, so here goes.

I am currently in the process of revision on a number of things. I have at least 6 stories that need revision and 2 novels. That means that in about a month or two I should be sending out a lot. Which is nice. But I need to get there.

I feel that I made some kind of breakthrough recently in the revision process. The writing groups have really helped, helped me to identify some of the weaknesses in my writing, helped me to address them. It took a little while, though. To see the patterns. To internalize the comments. Now the key is to make those lessons part of my writing technique and move forward.

Today I was supposed to leave for a writing retreat where I would be able to spend some time on these things. That didn’t quite happen due to the weather in NY, but tomorrow – tomorrow we will go.

I’m looking forward to it

I woke up this morning with a story in my head. This isn’t the first time that has happened, though I think this story actually has legs. The frustrating thing about such stories is that I started writing it in my sleep. I actually dreamt I was sitting in front of the computer constructing sentences and plotting the whole thing out. Some of that is inevitably lost. The good part is that I managed to hold onto several scenes and I can reconstitute them in some form or another.

I find it very exciting.

For some reason, my first WFC post doesn’t show up on the main page, though you can see it on the sidebar and navigate to it. Weird. I have no idea why. There is one there if people missed it. It posted to LJ, though, so who knows.

After facing distraction yesterday, I managed today to get out for t a little while to a local coffee shop to write.  It was good. I know it’s a cliche, but writing somewhere else does tend to focus me. I managed to make some progress on my latest story, one which has decided lately to give me some trouble.

The only problem is that my laptop battery isn’t really the best. I get maybe an hour out of it when it’s not plugged in. That’s not very good. And the coffee shop doesn’t have available outlets. I either need to invest in a secondary battery, or need to find another place to write.

My India report is still forthcoming. It’s just a lot to filter through. It was a very personal trip for me and finding a way to write that down has been difficult. But I’ll try. With pictures.

More to come later…