Two For The Price Of One

[dr_phil_physics]

One Silly Thing

jaylake had an entry last week on Evil Title Mashups, almost sort of like a genre version of the Jeopardy! game show category "Before & After". What amazes me is how quick some people are, and how much I want to hear the one-sentence teasers that would pitch these various "movies" or books... Jefferson Starship Troopers indeed!

One More Serious Thing

slushmaster had an entry last week on Odyssey and other workshops, including some thoughts on Clarion. While slushmaster attended Odyssey and not Clarion, both are six week workshops and some of his comments have resonance with both of these as well as shorter workshops.

I've run across blogs of people who have done both Clarion and Odyssey -- and should you even want to consider doing this, I'd recommend Clarion first. It's not that one is so much better than the other, it's that they are a little different. Clarion changes each week, so you get a different writer's perspective with each new instructor. Odyssey is more coherent, with Jeanne Cavelos at the helm all the way, with different guests brought in each week. I may be off the mark here (EDIT NOTE: Apparently I am -- see comments thread), especially as I am writing off-the-cuff and I've never attended Odyssey, but I think it's possible to say that Clarion is about writing and Odyssey is more about editing. Lord knows we need to know about both as a writer. People are free to correct me if my impression ain't valid... (grin)

The Big Commitment

The problem with attending either a Clarion or an Odyssey is that they run for six weeks. Since the U.S. increasingly views vacation time as something evil, as opposed to Europe, freeing up six weeks for a writer's boot camp workshop isn't easy. A number of people I've known going to Clarion are either in between jobs, arranging start times to provide the workshop window, or just out-and-out quit their job in order to concentrate on writing. Neither is easy to accomplish.

The goal, if you wish, is to break you down, expose the bone and sinews so it can be rearranged and made new again. (ewwww-grin) After all, to get in you have to show some ability to write to begin with. But to break bad habits, and we all start off with some bad habits, and to really think about where you're going, both writing-wise and marketing-wise, takes some effort. Fortunately, you can heal in a few weeks, months... years... (double-edged grin)

Anyway, enough comments for today. See ya later...

Dr. Phil

Comments

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I may be off the mark here, especially as I am writing off-the-cuff and I've never attended Odyssey, but I think it's possible to say that Clarion is about writing and Odyssey is more about editing. Lord knows we need to know about both as a writer. People are free to correct me if my impression ain't valid... (grin)

I'm not sure where you got that impression . . . I've been to Odyssey and not Clarion, but Odyssey is about writing. If it's about editing it's only insofar as editing and revising/rewriting are the same thing.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

I tried to give the impression that both are about writing, but in slushmaster's piece, he says:

Odyssey is run by Jeanne Cavelos, an editor & writer. She teaches her students to consider their works with an editorial eye.

At Clarion we were hard pressed to get a lot of revisions done -- at least not the same amount that I do here in the wild. Whether intended or not, the pressure was always on writing another story. Maybe it's the same thing... But those who've gone to both workshops say there's a different feeling about the two.

It's late... gotta hit the rack...

Dr. Phil

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I think all Doug was saying is that Jeanne brings an editor's perspective to the workshop, similar to how I would imagine Gordon van Gelder or Ellen Datlow do during their time at Clarion. I've no doubt that there are differences in the experiences, but both are intensive writing workshops and I think it's misleading to characterize the focus as being on editing. For what it's worth.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- I was trying to come up with some way to differentiate the two and at this point I've dug a hole which has (a) hit bedrock and (b) the walls are collapsing on me. I'd delete this post, except that your objections are valid and I'm not too big for a nice cup of mea culpa from time to time. (grin)

Seriously though, many thanks for putting this on a reasonable track.

Dr. Phil

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, I think it's valid to try and parse the differences between the two, though probably only someone who's been through both could really do so. In any case, no worries.