Shameless Bragging
I grew up in the Midwest, where one of the most important cultural rules is: DO NOT BRAG. When people say good things about themselves, you eye them warily and with deep distrust. When people say good things about you, you hem and haw and say, "Oh, well, it was nothing, really..." Because that is what good Midwesterners do. (It's one of the reasons I adjusted well to moving to the UK, where Midwestern modesty is taken to even greater extremes.)
However, today, I am going to toss aside all of my ingrained cultural modesty and brag shamelessly about my husband!
As you guys may already know, Patrick and I met in 2001 at the Clarion West Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing Workshop. On the first day of class, a chapter of my novel was up for critique. It was only the second piece to be critiqued in the workshop, and we were all still working out how to workshop at all...and how to survive having our work critiqued! Still, as the critiquing went around the table, most people were pretty positive. I felt my shoulders relax. This wasn't too bad. None of this would be too hard. I was fine, totally fine, and...
"The first twenty-seven pages were dull," Patrick said. (The chapter was 32 pages long, btw.) "It didn't get interesting until page 28."
Gasps of horror and sympathy rippled around the workshop circle. My spine snapped into ramrod-stiffness. I made my face perfectly expressionless and unfazed (something I'd had to learn how to do back in my conservatory days, during the torture sessions known as Studio Class). I took notes with dutiful calmness.
At the end of class, Patrick's first story was passed around. I picked it up calmly, with a polite smile. I thought: I am going to tear this story to PIECES!
I sat down that afternoon with a red pen in my hand and cruelty in my heart. I began to read...and everything went wrong. Because the story? It was beautiful. I absolutely loved it. All of my evil plans fell apart, and I didn't even care. I was too enthralled by the story I was reading.
I've felt the same about every story he's written since then. (And btw, he later apologized for the harshness of that first critique...but he's become by far my best critiquer, the one I trust most in the entire world, because I know he has excellent taste AND he cares more than anyone else in the world about my stories and my books. Nowadays, when he tells me that something isn't working...yes, I still curse silently. But I listen.) In the 9 years since Clarion West, he's published short stories in Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Year's Best Fantasy 6, Interzone, Black Static, and many more magazines, podcasts, and anthologies.
This week, he got his contributor's copy of the latest Interzone, which includes his story "Camelot". "Camelot" is beautiful and tragic and wonderful (and btw, not for kids - Interzone tends to publish science fiction and fantasy with some darkness in it, aimed squarely at adults). I'd already read it twice, in two different drafts, before he submitted it to Interzone. Reading it again, in published form, I fell into it all over again, amazed all over again by just how good it is.
Patrick's put all of his published short stories (except this, his most recent one) on his website now, where you can read them all for free. (Some of them are appropriate for older kids, like Crab Apple, which has been taught in various classrooms, and some are appropriate for all ages, like Uncle Vernon's Lie. Some of them aren't kid-appropriate at all, and those are clearly marked on the webpage so that no one will get confused.)
You can buy the latest issue of Interzone in various stores in the UK, US, and Canada, and I absolutely recommend that you do, if you like smart, dark, adult SF/fantasy. (This issue is extra-good, too, because not only does it include Patrick's story, it also has a great story by Aliette de Bodard, one of my other favorite writers of SF/F for adults.)
I'm not writing this entry to push one particular magazine issue, though...just to brag shamelessly about my amazing husband, because as I sat down to read his story, I was struck all over again by how very much he impresses me.
If I could go back to that first day at Clarion...well, I'd still want to kill him as I listened to that first critique. ;) But then I would lunge for the pile of fresh stories on the table so that I could read his story even faster and enjoy it even more the second time around.
What about you guys? Please consider this your forum for shameless bragging of any type. What are you most proud of right now, in yourself or in anyone else you care about?
However, today, I am going to toss aside all of my ingrained cultural modesty and brag shamelessly about my husband!
As you guys may already know, Patrick and I met in 2001 at the Clarion West Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing Workshop. On the first day of class, a chapter of my novel was up for critique. It was only the second piece to be critiqued in the workshop, and we were all still working out how to workshop at all...and how to survive having our work critiqued! Still, as the critiquing went around the table, most people were pretty positive. I felt my shoulders relax. This wasn't too bad. None of this would be too hard. I was fine, totally fine, and...
"The first twenty-seven pages were dull," Patrick said. (The chapter was 32 pages long, btw.) "It didn't get interesting until page 28."
Gasps of horror and sympathy rippled around the workshop circle. My spine snapped into ramrod-stiffness. I made my face perfectly expressionless and unfazed (something I'd had to learn how to do back in my conservatory days, during the torture sessions known as Studio Class). I took notes with dutiful calmness.
At the end of class, Patrick's first story was passed around. I picked it up calmly, with a polite smile. I thought: I am going to tear this story to PIECES!
I sat down that afternoon with a red pen in my hand and cruelty in my heart. I began to read...and everything went wrong. Because the story? It was beautiful. I absolutely loved it. All of my evil plans fell apart, and I didn't even care. I was too enthralled by the story I was reading.
I've felt the same about every story he's written since then. (And btw, he later apologized for the harshness of that first critique...but he's become by far my best critiquer, the one I trust most in the entire world, because I know he has excellent taste AND he cares more than anyone else in the world about my stories and my books. Nowadays, when he tells me that something isn't working...yes, I still curse silently. But I listen.) In the 9 years since Clarion West, he's published short stories in Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Year's Best Fantasy 6, Interzone, Black Static, and many more magazines, podcasts, and anthologies.
This week, he got his contributor's copy of the latest Interzone, which includes his story "Camelot". "Camelot" is beautiful and tragic and wonderful (and btw, not for kids - Interzone tends to publish science fiction and fantasy with some darkness in it, aimed squarely at adults). I'd already read it twice, in two different drafts, before he submitted it to Interzone. Reading it again, in published form, I fell into it all over again, amazed all over again by just how good it is.
Patrick's put all of his published short stories (except this, his most recent one) on his website now, where you can read them all for free. (Some of them are appropriate for older kids, like Crab Apple, which has been taught in various classrooms, and some are appropriate for all ages, like Uncle Vernon's Lie. Some of them aren't kid-appropriate at all, and those are clearly marked on the webpage so that no one will get confused.)
You can buy the latest issue of Interzone in various stores in the UK, US, and Canada, and I absolutely recommend that you do, if you like smart, dark, adult SF/fantasy. (This issue is extra-good, too, because not only does it include Patrick's story, it also has a great story by Aliette de Bodard, one of my other favorite writers of SF/F for adults.)
I'm not writing this entry to push one particular magazine issue, though...just to brag shamelessly about my amazing husband, because as I sat down to read his story, I was struck all over again by how very much he impresses me.
If I could go back to that first day at Clarion...well, I'd still want to kill him as I listened to that first critique. ;) But then I would lunge for the pile of fresh stories on the table so that I could read his story even faster and enjoy it even more the second time around.
What about you guys? Please consider this your forum for shameless bragging of any type. What are you most proud of right now, in yourself or in anyone else you care about?