Eric James Stone

Well, I’m halfway through the six weeks of Odyssey, and it’s been a great learning experience so far. I also feel like I’ve gotten some good writing done.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, though. Last weekend, after writing almost 2000 words of a story I figured would end up at around 4000, I realized my character structure didn’t work and the story was filled with boring internal monologue. And the climax would involve my main character being forced choose between (A) allowing the world and everyone in it to remain in a bad situation he had accidentally caused, or (B) fixing the problem. Oh, what a terrible moral dilemma he faces! How can he possibly choose between the two?

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I woke up in the middle of the night and had trouble getting back to sleep, so I decided to get a little work done. As I’m editing a document in Microsoft Word, all of a sudden, with absolutely no warning, Windows Update starts rebooting my computer in order to install updates. It closes Word without asking me if I wanted to save my document. After the reboot, when I open Word, there’s no autosaved version of the document, so all my changes are gone.

That is a ridiculously idiotic way for Windows Update to function, and I’m seriously reconsidering my usually pro-Microsoft attitude.

In case you missed the news, I’m attending the six-week-long Odyssey writing workshop. The first day was yesterday, and it lasts through July 20. I won’t be blogging it daily or posting my lecture notes like I did for the Writers of the Future workshop two years ago, because this workshop is much more based on critiquing manuscripts than on lectures. (And the rule is “What happens in the critique circle, stays in the critique circle.”)

There are sixteen students in the class, and it seems like a good group of people that I’m happy to be associated with in my writing career.

I’ve really been remiss in posting news about my reprints. Well, up until today, I really only had news about one reprint. I’ll talk about that first, then give my new news.

My story “Salt of Judas,” which originally appeared in Intergalactic Medicine Show, has been reprinted in the Prime Codex anthology from Paper Golem books, which came out about two weeks ago.

Prime Codex has one of the most intriguing covers I’ve seen: Read the rest of this entry »

Friday, June 8, is the deadline to apply for Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. Boot Camp is a weeklong writers’ workshop that is worth every dollar of the $725 tuition. I attended Boot Camp in 2003 and I owe a great deal of my success as a writer to that experience. If you’re serious about writing fiction, and have both the time and money to attend, I highly recommend it.

Even if you can’t attend the full week of Boot Camp, Uncle Orson’s Writing Class is still very worthwhile.

You can read about my notes from Literary Boot Camp and how I got in. To apply for this year, go here.

As Inigo Montoya said, “Let me explain… No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

After my last post, I drove to Los Angeles, stopping in Cedar City overnight. In L.A., I went to a round table of people working in Hollywood, run by Marc Zicree (whom I met at the Nebulas a week earlier). I got some good advice from the people there. I also went to a seminar on networking within the industry, taught by actor/writer/producer Isa Totah, who had some great tips.

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