Monthly Archives: March 2016

Patreon Post: Web of Blood and Iron

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Cat

This is the short story that I read from at Norwescon this year; many thank yous to the people who turned out to listen on the last day of the con when many of us were tired and hungover and … Continue reading →

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WIP: No Clue What the Title Is Yet

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Cat

Working on a far future space story that is getting very complicated with its gender stuff. This is one of the things that annoys me sometimes about future space stuff — that it superimposes early 21st century (sometimes earlier) gender patterns in a way that I know is hard to avoid but which infuriates me when it’s unquestioned. I just reread The Pride of Chanur (OMG how is that out of print in hardcopy??) yesterday and love the way Cherryh handles the question.

Hence this story of two cultures clashing, and both the gender norms and the norms around the sex act are getting tangled up in interesting ways.
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Cat’s Schedule: Norwescon 2016

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Cat

Fri 11:00 AM-12:00 PM – Cascade 7&8 Catching Readers, Hook, Line, & Sinker Cat Rambo (M), Gregory A. Wilson, Leslie Howle, Jude-Marie Green, Tori Centanni Fri 12:00 PM-1:00 PM – Cascade 3&4 The Language of Gender Cat Rambo (M), Jason … Continue reading →

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Online Writing Class News for March/April/May/June

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Cat

Here’s the most recent class listing and important news about the Writing F&SF Stories and Advanced Story workshops.

I will be offering two sections of the Writing F&SF workshop and one of the Advanced Story Workshop, but they are dependent on getting at least five students in order to make it financially feasible for me. If you want to sign up for one, drop me a line with the information about which class and what times work best for you, and I will be announcing dates as they solidify. Expressing interest does not commit you, but lets me gauge whether or not there is enough interest in a date/time slot to make it viable. You will not need to pay until the week before the class starts; the overall workshops will be six two or two and a half hour sessions, depending on the number of students enrolled.
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WIP: The Ghost Installers

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Cat

Here’s a bit from the story I’m trying to finish up today, a young adult piece tentatively entitled “The Ghost Installers.” It actually came out of a dream that I had – a good reason to be keeping a dream journal.

We talked about that recently in a class – the need to listen to your unconscious mind, to pay attention to dreams and serendipitous slips of the tongue. To nourish it with a variety of arts and make sure its senses are satisfied. To give it space in which to express itself. Sometimes when I’m drawing, that’s when a story that’s mentally knotted begins to untwist itself and show me what my mind is trying to do with it.

The dream was just a moment, an image/situation that I won’t describe for fear of spoilers. Talking to Wayne about it the next morning, I found a story idea emerging, which we batted back and forth, applying the classic try/fail, try/fail, try/succeed algorithm, until it was fleshed out to the point that I jotted down a 250 word outline. Now I’m working through that from scene one till the end, but I think if I get stuck along the way, I might try moving to the ending and writing it, advice from this excellent post about writing process by Kameron Hurley that I wanted to point to.
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