Clarion Week 6: Our Final Clarion Story
August 2, 2006

When Clarion Director Liz Zernechel said five weeks ago how she and a fellow student did a collaboration when she was a Clarion student, I thought: well, bully for you, but it'll be a cold day in hell... and then I forgot all about it because Superman Returns was starting. Little did I know...

Last week my suitemate Felice (as opposed to my sweetmate Jen) and I decided to give it a shot for a jointly final, Clarion Week 6 story.

When it comes to habits, I can't imagine a more opposite set of writing partners:
  • Felice writes at night, and I write in the mornings.
  • She plans a story in her head and starts writing her very passable first draft when she thinks she's got it, and I outline and then flesh out that outline in numerous passes until I have something resembling a first draft.
  • She likes to have other people in the room when she writes, and I need to be alone, with a closed door if possible.
  • She's a binge-writer, writing her stories in one all-nighter session each, and I'm an old-fartish, write-every-day type.

So you can see why we thought this was a good idea. The only way we could be have more opposite writing habits would be if one of us never actually finished a story. But we both do, and both of our routines produce stories at about the same intervals (while we're in East Lansing, at least). It's obvious that we had a collaboration learning curve when our compromise on when-to-write was: morning, afternoon, and night.

We came up with a piece with a very different scope from anything we've seen at Clarion so far (but within the SF tradition), and it's something well outside both of our comfort ranges. Yay for week 6 experimentation? Very fried, very tired, with a very early draft turned in right as the class started this morning. We have at least one scene each where the other person has barely skimmed it.

Butit was a fun trip and we accomplished our main goal with the story: we're still friends. Or we will be after we've both taken some naps.


Filed under Clarion, Journal, Prose and Poetry
Alex Wilson .com

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Clever, clever Alex and Felice! WORK it my friend, and How Ya Like Ya'Self Now?

Posted by: Alan at August 2, 2006 6:31 PM


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Heh. Somehow I thought it'd be you, but nooooo, I won't tell you I told you sooooooo. :)

Posted by: Liz at August 3, 2006 1:10 PM


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Liz: I hate being predictable.

Alan: Now that I'm home I'll have to start checking your blog as well.

Posted by: Alex at August 6, 2006 2:31 PM


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by Alex Wilson. This is from an online journal/blog I kept from 1998-2009. Back to alexwilson.com.