Before I launch into this post, I want to tell you all: I have an agent. Of course when I received the offer I was the consummate professional. You know me. Cool-headed, even-tempered, never one to get carried away. I thanked him for the offer and politely accepted and was the very picture of calm. […]
Author Archive > Caroline Ratajski
Go to a Workshop? No Thanks
All month long we’ve been discussing workshops. Which ones are out there, what they have to offer, how to get to them, and how to work around the inability to attend one. I’m going to offer a different perspective: not wanting to go to a workshop, ever. It happens invariably at every convention where SFF […]
New Year, Same Goals
For those of us who subscribe to the Gregorian calendar, tomorrow is the last day of the year, and the day after brings us into 2012. Many of us made resolutions at the beginning of this year, and this is the time when we look at how we did, and adjust for greater success in […]
World Fantasy 2011 Inkpunks Event Calendar
Saturday, October 29, 8PM – 9PM, Suite TBD (fliers will be available at the con with the room number on it) We will be having a reading in one of the suites, where seven of us will be reading selections from our published or soon-to-be-published work. There will be snacks and booze and door prizes, […]
Year of Inkpunks, My Little Retrospect
Two years ago I went to World Fantasy in San Jose on a lark. Friends of mine said I had to go, especially since it was local. So I went. And I wound up meeting about half of what would become the Inkpunks. I felt incredibly awkward and shy, so I drank enough vodka to […]
Running on Batteries: Introverts and Conventions
Introverts… tend to be introspective, quiet and less sociable. They are not necessarily loners but they tend to have fewer numbers of friends. Introversion does not describe social discomfort but rather social preference: an introvert may not be shy but may merely prefer fewer social activities. (source) Most people think introverts are socially awkward shut-ins […]
The Dark Night of the Creative Soul
Several months ago I got a huge pile of notes on my novel, and was asked if hey, could I turn that around by a certain date? I said well, I will put my best effort into doing that. And now, staring at my big huge wall of notecards, assessing the structure of this thing, […]
Con Season Thoughts
As I’m preparing for SDCC and WorldCon and PAX and the eventual WFC, I see common themes emerging from each of these, with respect to my pretending-to-be-a-writer thing I gots going on. So, I decided to consolidate those things in a post here. This isn’t an all-encompassing list, but just a list of things I […]
Guest Post: Surviving A Critique Without Killing Yourself, Or Even Other People, by Ferrett Steinmetz
In the past three years, Ferrett Steinmetz became bishopual, and became revitalized. In June of 2008, he went to the the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and then Viable Paradise in 2009 – and they supercharged him, allowing him to publish seventeen stories since then. (It should be noted that in twenty years’ of effort before that, […]
Awareness and Writing
Disclaimer: I do not claim to be someone who knows. I only claim to be someone who tries. This post is addressed to all writers. Even the ones who don’t think this applies to them. Because, however much we try, we will always make mistakes. The world is really diverse, and I mean, really diverse. […]
