“ I ' ve been talking a lot about rejection here , but I can ' t tout its usefulness enough . Yes , rejection hurts . But it also toughens you up as a creative person .”
QUILL
“ I ' ve been talking a lot about rejection here , but I can ' t tout its usefulness enough . Yes , rejection hurts . But it also toughens you up as a creative person .”
No two people are going to read your work and perceive it the same way . " One man ' s trash is another man ' s treasure ," and all that . When you submit your work frequently , and compare the reasons why your work was rejected , you begin to learn that 1 ) you are not your work , 2 ) sometimes , an editor rejects your work for reasons that have nothing to do with quality , and 3 ) sometimes , editors reject stories because they do not conform to certain cultural tropes or maybe their own biases . In which case , you ' re better off finding a more inclusive venue to send your story to .
Apart from that , you learn a few of the ins and outs of the writing and publishing business if you ' re an old hat at putting your work out there ; on the writing end , writers should know Standard Manuscript Format , how to write cover letters and how to follow submission guidelines .
You were also part of the prestigious Clarion workshop for science fiction writing . What pushed you to join , and how did it help you mature and grow as a writer ?
All the workshops and writing classes I ' d joined at that point were geared toward more general , realist fiction . I felt like I wasn ' t getting the mentoring I needed , so when I googled writing workshops for science fiction and fantasy , Clarion came up . The roster of instructors for the year I was accepted to ( 2014 ) included Catherynne Valente and N . K . Jemisin — two writers whose work I really admired years before I ' d even heard of the Clarion workshops . When you find an opportunity to learn from writers whose work you love , you take it — well , at least , that ' s what I believe .
Clarion proved to be an intense but also really fun SFFH ( Science Fiction , Fantasy and Horror ) writers ' boot camp . It ' s said that undergoing Clarion accelerates one ' s growth as writers by two years — and I can attest to that being true for me , too . But apart from picking up new techniques , I also learned new ways of seeing things there ; before Clarion , I rarely set my stories in the Philippines and I would write white characters . Being in the US for six weeks , surrounded by likeminded people who were also mostly white ( although I did have classmates of Iranian , Indian and Japanese descent ) really brought home to me how brown my skin was and how different my values were . Nearly every story I wrote at Clarion starred brown characters and tinkered with the Philippines as a setting , whether present day , near-future or pre-colonial-inspired secondary world . And every story I ' ve written since coming back from Clarion has done the same .
What truths and insights has a career in short fiction writing revealed to you so far ?
Well , I ' m only at the beginning of mine , but here ' s what I learned thus far :
1 . I tend to write long short stories , and that ' s okay . 2 . Writers can get several big breaks in their careers if they keep at it . 3 . Career plans are important , but they should be bounded by loose timelines , not hard deadlines . 4 . When one has a career plan , one is better able to say
' no ' to whatever doesn ' t fit that plan . 5 . Whatever path I take in my career , I need to commit to it
Follow Vida on Instagram @ vidadrawsthings for her drawings or tweet your opinions at her @ laviecestmoi .
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