Ebony's Pearls

At this time of year, when acquaintances are attending Clarion and I'm going to the few cons I go to each year, I get a serious case of the envies. And see, I shouldn't be envious of them. Sure, the Clarion attendees learn, in a compressed period of time, what their fictional strengths and weaknesses are - and more importantly, how to fix them. But I can do the same thing - eventually. I already earn a significant portion of my living from my writing, so I'm even ahead of where some of them are at already. It's just my lucrative writing isn't fiction.

Given how very, utterly, slowly I am learning my fictional weaknesses and, through trial and error, managing to correct them one weakness at a time, it often feels as if I will never get published as a fictional writer.

I get inspired to write fiction, and it really I feel really constricted to have to write those manuals and handbooks to such rigid formulas. I deal with it by allowing myself 5 days to write what I want to write, and then I give myself all of November to write fiction.

November is NaNoWriMo, and I can relate to all the other writers who are also struggling to write fiction. I can cheer them on and, to me, it's kind of like a remote and aloof Clarion, the closest I will ever come to actually attending Clarion.

So, yes, I envy everyone at Clarion with no good reason to do so.