Keffy

everything i do is so fucking amazing that sparks are going to shoot out of your eyes

Tag: clarion ucsd

The 2014 Clarion UCSD Blog Post (of doom)

June 23, 2014 / / 1 Comment

It’s that time of year again! This year, the Clarion UCSD Write-a-Thon runs from June 22 to August 2. Yesterday was the first day, and although I was generally distracted by BRIGHT SUNLIGHT, I completed 2 of my 150 hours of butt-in-chair time. I also completed my first SUPER SECRET blog post. 🙂

If you don’t know what the Write-a-Thon is, you can check out the main page here: http://clarionwriteathon.org/

My profile is here: http://clarionwriteathon.org/members/profile.php?writerid=457231

Short version is that I’m doing the Write-a-Thon to raise money for the Clarion UCSD workshop, which I attended in 2008. The workshop is a nonprofit, and it depends on donations to keep costs down for the students (and it’s already PLENTY expensive). Clarion is a six-week, intense science fiction/fantasy short story workshop. I had a blast while I was there and learned a ton, so I’d like the workshop to continue so that more people can attend in the future.

NOTE! (IF YOU TRIED TO DONATE IN THE PAST WEEK)

If you tried to send a donation in the past week, check my profile. So far, the only confirmed money I have is from the people who are listed on that page. The Write-a-Thon emails me to tell me when I receive donations or sponsorships, but it doesn’t send me an email or any other identifying information. If you tried to donate and never got a paypal login page, then something went wrong and you might have to try again. I know, it’s a bummer! I’m not sure who’s in charge of the site design, but I think it’s generally a work in progress each year.

You can also drop me a line in email (kehrli at gmail dot com), comments on my website, or in my tumblr ask box.

WHAT DO YOU GET

The satisfaction of having donated to an awesome workshop! And you have encouraged me not to just give up now! Yay! Encouragement! I am AN ENCOURAGEMENT SPONGE.

Also!

If you go to my member profile and either donate or sponsor me for $10 or more, I will send you the SUPER SECRET password and url for my clarion website. The posts will contain what I’m working on, as well as my discussion afterward regarding what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and how I feel about what I’m writing. YES! You’ll get to read raw, unfinished fiction. O____O;

I will even answer process questions! Well, if you have them.

If $10 is a bit steep for a donation to a writing workshop, for $5, I’ll send you an ebook (hopefully I’ll be able to get it into mobi, epub, and pdf) containing several of my previously published stories, some of which are not currently available online.

If you have TONS of money to throw at good causes this month, and you drop $25 or more in my bucket (and are a writer), I will critique one of your short stories (up to 5000 words in length). I am a professionally published SF/F short story writer and I currently edit for Shimmer Magazine. I know things!

Obviously, this subdomain is already up (and I’ve just put up my post for Day 1), but the ebook is going to take a few more days to get put together. My critique turn around will be about a week after you send me the story, and you can wait to send me a story for critique until you’ve got one finished. 🙂

DONATION INSTRUCTIONS (kinda)

Finally, I know that the donation site is not completely intuitive. If you’re sponsoring, it should let you choose how much to sponsor me for (7 cents for each of the 150 hours will get you to about $10), and then it’ll just be done. If you’re not going to make an account and just want to donate, you should be able to choose to skip registration. After skipping registration and choosing an amount to donate, the website should automatically open PayPal or another payment window.

If it doesn’t open that up, you can either email the site or just try again. Otherwise, it’ll just show your donation as “unconfirmed” for a few days before it vanishes. Eep.

Also, although Clarion sends me an email from the treasurer to inform me that I’ve received sponsorships and donations, they do not share any of your information with me. Therefore, after donating, please drop me an email: kehrli at gmail dot com so I can send you the password / ebook / etc.

WHY AM I DOING THIS?

I’m using the Write-a-Thon this year to really get on track to write regularly. It’s taken several years to do this because it (embarrassingly) took until earlier this year for me to finally get treated for depression. It’s kind of a long story, but it’ll probably get mentioned in the posts when I discuss the problems I’m having jump-starting my writing productivity.

Back in 2008, I went to Clarion in San Diego, and it was definitely a life-changing experience. Prior to that, I hadn’t sold any short stories, so my acceptance into the workshop was the first time I got external validation regarding my fiction writing.

I have blogged occasionally about Clarion and what it meant to me. In order to read the posts that I wrote about Clarion while I was there (and a few I wrote afterward), check out the clarion and clarionucsd tags on my old LJ:

http://kehrli.livejournal.com/tag/clarion%20ucsd

http://kehrli.livejournal.com/tag/clarion

Anyway, thanks for visiting and/or donating! If you have any further questions, either pop them into the comment box here or drop me an email: kehrli at gmail dot com.

Even if you can’t/don’t feel like donating to Clarion or sponsoring me in the Write-a-Thon, please do share this with your friends, especially if any of them might be interested in reading my write-a-thon blog posts and/or getting a professional short story critique.

A little less than 6 hours to go…

August 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Four years ago today(ish), I had to pack up all my stuff, try to cram 6 weeks of belongings and books into my single suitcase, and catch a flight back to Bellingham. Even though it was horrifyingly sunny the whole six weeks (which just seems unnatural to me), I miss San Diego. Well. Okay, I mostly miss the people. Even though today is the sad leaving day, I hope this year’s class had a great 6 weeks. I hope they learned as much as they could and that they’ll stay in touch with each other. Endings are hard.

Anyway, the Clarion UCSD Write-a-Thon has a little less than 6 hours to meet its fundraising goal! Which means I have a little less than 6 hours to finish my last story. Phew.

And, I’m still offering to send books to people who sponsor me for $10 or more. 🙂

To donate to Clarion, you can visit my page, or the main page.

 

HUGE thanks to everyone who has sponsored or participated this year!

Yet Another Write-a-Thon Update

July 25, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Hey!

So, I finally finished a second short story draft, with what… a week and a half to go?

(No, you can’t read it yet, it’s terrible. No, you don’t want to, trust me.)

Basically, if I’m going to do this thing, I’m going to have to suck it up and finish drafts of all these miserable and abandoned stories — and do that WHILE taking the first two weeks of a super-condensed organic chemistry class.

Yes, because pacing myself was apparently too difficult of a concept. Whoops! But, I’m still going to make it, because a) it’s for Clarion and b) at this point, I’m so fucking tired of having no finished fiction that I don’t even care if these are terrible. I DO NOT CARE. That’s what rewrites are for!

ANYWAY. Besides the update, I have a reward for people who have donated!

If you have sponsored or pledged $15 $10 or more to my write-a-thon drive (or if you choose to do so before August 5) I will mail you a signed perfect bound dead-tree edition of the PDF I made last year. It contains four of my short stories: Advertising at the End of the World, Machine Washable, Bone Dice, and Daha’s Son. And illustrations! The PDF copy is available online, but I don’t sell the print version, so this is going to be a veeeery limited print run.

I’m on the wrong computer right now, so I can’t find the cover image complete with terrible font choice, so here’s the full image I used for the cover (I drew it in December 2010.)

 

And, either way, here’s the PDF (I kept forgetting to put it back up after I switched my site around:

four-stories

Thanks, everybody!

 

 

ETA: If you already sponsored for $10 or more, I’ll be in touch with you on August 5 or 6. Also, if you don’t want another book (I totally understand), then I won’t send you anything. 🙂

The Clarion UCSD Write-a-What Now?

June 21, 2012 / / 2 Comments

This was going to be some super long exciting post in which I talked about how much going to Clarion meant to me, etc. However, almost all of those posts read pretty much the same, and I’ve made a bunch in the past. Almost all of which are somewhere on my LiveJournal account because I didn’t bother reposting any of my stuff here. Because, come on! It’s the internet! It’s a series of links!

(And if you’re reading this from LiveJournal, I still love you! I even check my friend’s list. I’m just enjoying the WordPress ability to schedule posts.)

Anyway!

I am doing the Clarion UCSD Write-a-Thon. Which is great for me, because it doesn’t officially start until Sunday. I would already be muttering profanity under my breath if I was doing the Clarion West Write-a-Thon since it started last week, and I have done nothing.

The Write-a-Thon is pretty much what it sounds like (and since I’ve tweeted about it once or twice, I suspect everyone I know has already heard about it — but that has never stopped me from posting about something before). As a fundraiser for Clarion, I’m writing stuff and convincing people to donate to keep the workshop going.

Links:

Clarion Write-a-Thon

Clarion West Write-a-Thon

Incidentally, I have an intense and unreasonable dislike for the word “Write-a-Thon.” I mean, the event is awesome, but I always stare at the word. Capitalization varies. Write-A-Thon, Write-a-Thon, Write-a-thon, write-a-thon. …Yeah.

So, between June 24 and August 4, my goal is to write six short stories, since I currently don’t have any to send out.

You know what is the saddest feeling as a writer? When editors are like, “HEY, so… I have this magazine that pays pro rates, and you aren’t in my slush! You should send me something!” But you’re me, and so you’re like, “Yes! I will do this!” And then you remember that not only do you have no new, fresh, awesome stories, but even the trunk is empty because you were afraid that one day in a moment of weakness you’d send them out. So you pressed the giant DELETE FROM THE UNIVERSE button. But even knowing that those stories should never have seen the light of day doesn’t end the sad, sad, writer feelings.

My Write-a-Thon page is here. The photo was taken in the Bellingham Airport just before I got on the plane to go to Clarion San Diego in June 2008. I had no idea what I was in for. Heh heh heh. /huttlaugh

There are two options for donations this year. First option is a straight up sponsor, which is a donation to Clarion UCSD. The other option is a pledge. As of right now, I have a little bit over $100 in pledges. This means that so far, for every short story I finish during the Write-a-Thon, Clarion will get another $18. The higher the pledge amount the more terrified I will be of failure the more incentive I have to succeed!

If you’d like to participate, you can still sign up for the Clarion UCSD Write-a-Thon until June 24.

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