Viable Paradise XVIII and the Happy Writing Life

Sometimes you write short stories about color vampires and sleeping beneath blankets of sea, sometimes you critique other people’s equally odd and wonderful stories, and sometimes, well, sometimes you apply for writing workshops and find out you got in.

In other words, I’ve been accepted to Viable Paradise XVIII!

Dear readers, I am so excited. I get to have a story workshopped among speculative fiction pros like Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, and Sherwood Smith (and many others)! I get to talk about writing and books and narrative and YA fantasy for a whole week! On beautiful Martha’s Vineyard in the autumn! I get to eat delicious dinners prepared for us every night and take walks to see bioluminescent jellyfish! I get to meet writers I don’t yet know and room with them! I haven’t done anything like this since I attended Clarion back in 2006, and I can’t wait!

Just before I learned I’d been accepted last week, I visited my incredibly talented friends C.S.E. Cooney and Julia Rios and read them the story I’ll be workshopping at VP (which was also my application story). We also wrote, watched Firefly, discussed what makes a poem work, and ate lots of vanilla ice cream drizzled with Bailey’s Irish Cream. If you haven’t tried that last, do. It makes writing retreats even . . . sweeter.

And I’ve been reading so many wonderful books. Stories–the core of a writer’s diet. It’s like you’re a butter churn, and you fill yourself with rainbows and pieces of sky and end up with new seeds of your own stories. The latest on my to-read pile: Welcome to Bordertown, Zombies Vs. Unicorns, Dark Metropolis, Otherbound, and Stargazing for Dummies. Check them out if you haven’t!

Anyway, back to work! I’ve got a novel draft to finish, after all.