My Meeting With Karl Schroeder...
Feb. 25th, 2010 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6So, yes, the event I alluded to in my last post that I would have to write about today was, in fact, my evaluation with Karl Schroeder (author of Ventus, Lady of Mazes, Permanence, and the Virga series).
He told me I stunk at writing and I should give it up forever.
He told me my story was awesome and publishable right now and in fact he's already lined up a publisher.
He kicked me down the stairs and then stole my wallet, and threatened my family if I ever told anybody.
In other, alternate universes, all of those may have happened, but in this particular universe it was somewhere in the more realistic range, however generally very positive.
I'll start at the beginning. No, the beginning's too far back. I'll give a brief backstory, then start at today. The brief backstory: He's temporarily the Writer in Residence in the Merrill Collection (the SF library in Toronto), and as part of that, he reads manuscripts from people and gives them evaluations. After much hemming and hawing, I managed to submit a story that I've attempted to send off to publish a few times, with no success. Alas, rejections rarely come with feedback.
This is the first time since I was a kid that I wrote anything I cared about and had a face to face encounter with somebody who read it (aside from teachers, but I'll count that as "as a kid"). I write very little that I let anybody read (anything I do is always posted under the filter of "I only spent a short time on this" so I have a psychological 'out' if they don't like it. I didn't spend much time on it. This is one reason I post only writer workshop stories (done in a limited timeframe) or 'outlines', deliberately left roughed (where I can show off the ideas and not the writing). So, naturally, it was a little nerve-wracking. In addition to my normal severe social anxiety problems, there was this. I'm surprised I did it at all. So they eventually got back to me and made the appointment (as it turns out, though I only found this out a few minutes ago, this was the first day of meetings for him).
Anxiety-wise, I was mostly okay until today. And even today, I was mostly okay for most of it. Sure, I didn't sleep well - my mind was automatically trying to generate any possible thing he could say and what I could say back to it. That happens so much and I have little control over it. But I didn't actually feel anxious. That started when I was on the subway on my way towards the Library. I couldn't even read the book I brought because I knew I couldn't concentrate. I showed up about an hour earlier than my appointment, and sat in the Merrill Collection reading (I was able to, but my mind kept drifting away and getting paranoid) while he was with another person. It really started to ratchet up the fear there. By the time my appointment came, I was practically shaking. No serious thoughts of just bolting out of there, luckily, just idle fantasies (I've learned from observation that having already made a commitment to be somewhere makes me less likely to back out of things no matter how much I want to).
So for the next hour, I talked with Karl Schroeder about my story and my work in general and a bit about his work. I was able to say some of the things I intended to, other times I forgot obvious things, sometimes trivial (I forgot to mention Peter Watts under my favorites in the field lately), sometimes more substantial (only stated about half of one of the themes I was playing with in the story). He was polite and pleasant and generally encouraging, making a few jokes now and then of the shared pain of a writer. I'd like to say he put me at ease, and probably to an extent he did, but I was very aware of all my body movements, and there were far too many of them, twitching, shaking, fidgeting, etc all the way through. The nervousness lasted until about 10-15 minutes after I left and was on my way home (and I almost certainly won't sleep well tonight either as I run over what he said and what I said and what I could have said better or should have said at all... gah, I hate my brain sometimes).
I also got him to autograph a book of his, which was a nice takeaway. I tried not to sound too fawning but I think I did. But then he's a writer, so he probably thought I wasn't fawning enough and that I was faking it and hated him. ;) And he offered, at least once the WiR stuff is over, if I have any more specific questions on how to handle an issue, to feel free to e-mail him, which is good.
The specifics of his thoughts on the short story though? He was generally very positive about it. He said he liked the character work (something I'm always worried about), thought the pacing was good with a small exception, thought it was a really cool idea, and he said that with a few changes it could easily be publishable. Basically the problems he saw were that he thought there was a bit of a disconnect between it being a science fictional story, in which the science fictional aspects are important, and a literary story, where they're more symbolic and don't really need to be explained. - For most of the story it read as a science fiction story, and then towards the end it shifted, and not in a good way, but in a way that makes it not QUITE hang together. He gave a couple guidelines for how to try and mesh it, either going one way or the other, and later when I talked about one of the things I was going for with the science fictional element being parallel to the human element, seemed to get it, but pointed out that I probably needed to make the connection between them more explicit with some parallel structuring. I'll have to mull it over, but I have a few preliminary ideas of how that might work.
He gave me a page of some more detailed notes to take away (which probably just recaps most of what he covered in words), but I'm not reading it yet, I don't think I'm quite in the right mind to process it. If there's anything else of note there I'll mention it in a later post.
I also talked to him a bit about the other story I thought about submitting, and he seemed to like the idea and some of the underlying themes I was playing with there, which makes me feel a little more confident.
I do think it was overall a good experience. I wish I could have been a bit more dynamic and not scared-rabbittish, and could remember things I was saying and not mumble and stutter and so on, and could come up with wildly interesting things to talk about, but that's like wishing for a spaceship. (Doesn't stop me, but I have to deal with the lack). I liked having the detailed, unbiased evaluation, even if it wasn't as good as one of the wild unrealistic hopes I might have had (damn you, alternate universe me for living that universe so I can't!), and having, for a short time, somebody to talk with in person about writing. He suggested that I might want to attend the Writer's Workshop next month, but I don't see it happening. Maybe though I'll try to open up a little on letting other eyes read my work before I send it off to publishers. I don't know. It's still a very difficult and personal thing to let someone read your work (and we discussed that there), criticism always seems magnified and even beyond that the voice in your head that somebody you know's saying something to just be nice (which he suffers from too, even in reviews). I just hope he wasn't just being nice about the positive aspects to be encouraging! :)
On the way home, because I hadn't had lunch to go there, and to reward myself since it was fairly positive, I got some McDonalds (Double cheeseburger and buffalo chicken snack wrap). (But if it was negative, I probably would have consoled myself with the same thing).
I think that's about all there is to the story.
He told me I stunk at writing and I should give it up forever.
He told me my story was awesome and publishable right now and in fact he's already lined up a publisher.
He kicked me down the stairs and then stole my wallet, and threatened my family if I ever told anybody.
In other, alternate universes, all of those may have happened, but in this particular universe it was somewhere in the more realistic range, however generally very positive.
I'll start at the beginning. No, the beginning's too far back. I'll give a brief backstory, then start at today. The brief backstory: He's temporarily the Writer in Residence in the Merrill Collection (the SF library in Toronto), and as part of that, he reads manuscripts from people and gives them evaluations. After much hemming and hawing, I managed to submit a story that I've attempted to send off to publish a few times, with no success. Alas, rejections rarely come with feedback.
This is the first time since I was a kid that I wrote anything I cared about and had a face to face encounter with somebody who read it (aside from teachers, but I'll count that as "as a kid"). I write very little that I let anybody read (anything I do is always posted under the filter of "I only spent a short time on this" so I have a psychological 'out' if they don't like it. I didn't spend much time on it. This is one reason I post only writer workshop stories (done in a limited timeframe) or 'outlines', deliberately left roughed (where I can show off the ideas and not the writing). So, naturally, it was a little nerve-wracking. In addition to my normal severe social anxiety problems, there was this. I'm surprised I did it at all. So they eventually got back to me and made the appointment (as it turns out, though I only found this out a few minutes ago, this was the first day of meetings for him).
Anxiety-wise, I was mostly okay until today. And even today, I was mostly okay for most of it. Sure, I didn't sleep well - my mind was automatically trying to generate any possible thing he could say and what I could say back to it. That happens so much and I have little control over it. But I didn't actually feel anxious. That started when I was on the subway on my way towards the Library. I couldn't even read the book I brought because I knew I couldn't concentrate. I showed up about an hour earlier than my appointment, and sat in the Merrill Collection reading (I was able to, but my mind kept drifting away and getting paranoid) while he was with another person. It really started to ratchet up the fear there. By the time my appointment came, I was practically shaking. No serious thoughts of just bolting out of there, luckily, just idle fantasies (I've learned from observation that having already made a commitment to be somewhere makes me less likely to back out of things no matter how much I want to).
So for the next hour, I talked with Karl Schroeder about my story and my work in general and a bit about his work. I was able to say some of the things I intended to, other times I forgot obvious things, sometimes trivial (I forgot to mention Peter Watts under my favorites in the field lately), sometimes more substantial (only stated about half of one of the themes I was playing with in the story). He was polite and pleasant and generally encouraging, making a few jokes now and then of the shared pain of a writer. I'd like to say he put me at ease, and probably to an extent he did, but I was very aware of all my body movements, and there were far too many of them, twitching, shaking, fidgeting, etc all the way through. The nervousness lasted until about 10-15 minutes after I left and was on my way home (and I almost certainly won't sleep well tonight either as I run over what he said and what I said and what I could have said better or should have said at all... gah, I hate my brain sometimes).
I also got him to autograph a book of his, which was a nice takeaway. I tried not to sound too fawning but I think I did. But then he's a writer, so he probably thought I wasn't fawning enough and that I was faking it and hated him. ;) And he offered, at least once the WiR stuff is over, if I have any more specific questions on how to handle an issue, to feel free to e-mail him, which is good.
The specifics of his thoughts on the short story though? He was generally very positive about it. He said he liked the character work (something I'm always worried about), thought the pacing was good with a small exception, thought it was a really cool idea, and he said that with a few changes it could easily be publishable. Basically the problems he saw were that he thought there was a bit of a disconnect between it being a science fictional story, in which the science fictional aspects are important, and a literary story, where they're more symbolic and don't really need to be explained. - For most of the story it read as a science fiction story, and then towards the end it shifted, and not in a good way, but in a way that makes it not QUITE hang together. He gave a couple guidelines for how to try and mesh it, either going one way or the other, and later when I talked about one of the things I was going for with the science fictional element being parallel to the human element, seemed to get it, but pointed out that I probably needed to make the connection between them more explicit with some parallel structuring. I'll have to mull it over, but I have a few preliminary ideas of how that might work.
He gave me a page of some more detailed notes to take away (which probably just recaps most of what he covered in words), but I'm not reading it yet, I don't think I'm quite in the right mind to process it. If there's anything else of note there I'll mention it in a later post.
I also talked to him a bit about the other story I thought about submitting, and he seemed to like the idea and some of the underlying themes I was playing with there, which makes me feel a little more confident.
I do think it was overall a good experience. I wish I could have been a bit more dynamic and not scared-rabbittish, and could remember things I was saying and not mumble and stutter and so on, and could come up with wildly interesting things to talk about, but that's like wishing for a spaceship. (Doesn't stop me, but I have to deal with the lack). I liked having the detailed, unbiased evaluation, even if it wasn't as good as one of the wild unrealistic hopes I might have had (damn you, alternate universe me for living that universe so I can't!), and having, for a short time, somebody to talk with in person about writing. He suggested that I might want to attend the Writer's Workshop next month, but I don't see it happening. Maybe though I'll try to open up a little on letting other eyes read my work before I send it off to publishers. I don't know. It's still a very difficult and personal thing to let someone read your work (and we discussed that there), criticism always seems magnified and even beyond that the voice in your head that somebody you know's saying something to just be nice (which he suffers from too, even in reviews). I just hope he wasn't just being nice about the positive aspects to be encouraging! :)
On the way home, because I hadn't had lunch to go there, and to reward myself since it was fairly positive, I got some McDonalds (Double cheeseburger and buffalo chicken snack wrap). (But if it was negative, I probably would have consoled myself with the same thing).
I think that's about all there is to the story.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 10:28 pm (UTC)You mentioned having submitted this story and received rejections on it, and I know that must be very hard for you with your anxiety. I don't know if you've read this before, but it's wonderful for putting a rejection in perspective: Why Did My Story Get Rejected?
I feel your pain on letting other people read things and trying to deal with the criticism and feedback.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 01:39 am (UTC)I didn't realize Karl Schroeder was doing a writer-in-residence thing. Clearly, Toronto can get better writers than Calgary.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 12:04 pm (UTC)It might be a good idea to try that Writer's Workshop if you are interested in publishing...I don't really know what they're like, but surely it must be helpful.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 07:54 am (UTC)