A Weekend in Baltimore

A while back a friend of mine, whom I met at StokerCon in Grand Rapids last year, suggested I submit for the Borderlands Press Writer’s Bootcamp. Skeptical from the shitty website, but intrigued by the instructors (previous ones included John Douglas, Sr. Editor Avon Books, William Morrow; Richard Chizmar, Sr. Editor, Cemetery Dance; Peter Straub–Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, with current instructors F. Paul Wilson–Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award; Thomas F. Monteleone–Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award; Ginjer Buchanan, Sr. Editor, Berkley Putnam, Douglas E. Winter; and Chet Williamson), I submitted material and was accepted.

Now, almost a week on, I reflect on my time spent in Baltimore. Because I have a headache and the lady next to me on the bus thinks it’s appropriate to drown herself in perfume (readers will note that I’m especially sensitive to smell, so much so that at home I need everything hypoallergenic and fragrance-free, including hand soap, deodorant, washing detergent, etc.—so, there’s a special place in Hell for the perfume lady a few rows up), I’m feeling a little grumpy this morning. Accordingly, I’m going to start off with the negatives.

The event was hosted at the Brookshire Suites on East Lombard Street. Twenty minutes after checking into my room, I checked back out and stayed at the Hilton up the street. My room absolutely stank of some kind of cleaning perfume or detergent, and almost immediately made me sick. The hotel itself was also kind of shitty.

To my friends at Borderlands Press: guys, pick a better venue next year. The Hilton I stayed at was much nicer and almost the same price.

Communication from BP was poor. The way it was worded, their instructions on hotel check-in (while also neglecting to mention anything about rates) made it seem—to me and at least a couple other people I spoke with—as if the hotel reservation fee was included in the cost of the workshop. I like to think of myself as a pretty careful planner, and I was caught off guard here. I made an assumption, and that may be on me, but BP could have been more explicit.

Organization was lacking. On Saturday, a group of people met with one of the instructors, critiqued the pieces they had handed in, and then rotated to the next instructor. People were supposed to rotate in each group as well, so ideally you never met with the same people twice. This would have enabled each person to get feedback from different people. If I met with Amy, Tim, and John in one session, then the next session I would meet with Stacy, Frank, and Jane. In practice, this did not happen. We were told that there would be some overlap because they couldn’t figure out how to ensure a unique sorting algorithm, but it was pretty bad. I don’t think I met with unique group members more than 50% of the time.

A quick sort could yield something like this:

Chet         |Ginger          |Paul            |Doug            |Tom
1  6  11  16 | 1   2   3   4  | 5   3   4   5  | 6   7   8   9  | 10  11  12  13
2  7  12  17 | 6   7   8   9  | 10  9   10  14 | 5   10  19  11 | 2   16  19  17
3  8  13  18 | 11  12  13  14 | 15  15  11  16 | 11  12  1   2  | 19  3   5   1
4  9  14  19 | 16  17  18  19 | 20  1   17  18 | 18  15  5   20 | 8   7   9   10

It’s not perfect, but it’s better. I don’t accept that the groups couldn’t have been organized in a non-overlapping way—or at least without as much overlap. (Originally I thought this was a simple ‘permutations without repetition’ problem, but I don’t think that’s quite right). So, that was frustrating.

Now, the positives: everyone I met was wonderful. They all brought something unique to the workshop. I didn’t agree with everyone on everything we discussed, but I made some great friends.

There was one person that I didn’t end up meeting with but I heard a distressing story: instead of providing thoughtful critique of a particular writer’s work, they simply wrote a big ‘X’ across the first page. I didn’t see this happen otherwise I would have said something, but this is not acceptable behavior. The person that did that should very honestly feel ashamed of themselves. That kind of toxic, alienating, rude, and lazy behavior has no place in the horror writing community (or any community, for that matter). I read the story of the author that person wrote the ‘X’ on, and while it needed a lot of work, there was still value in what they’d written. I learned something from that writer, and for their part, they provided thoughtful feedback for me while gracefully accepting that they needed to do some polishing of their story. But even if you thought their story didn’t have value, if you think it’s okay to treat a person that way, what does that say about you? After hearing about that incident, I’m glad I didn’t connect with that writer. I wouldn’t have liked them very much.

There was something magical in watching a panel where Doug Winters and Chet Williamson would need to explain to Ginjer Buchanan the proper pronunciation of ‘wuss,’ and that the word did, in fact, originate as a derivative of the word ‘pussy.’

It goes without saying that the instructors were all fantastic. Their insight was prescient, thoughtful, funny, and encouraging. Their critiques were tough, but fair.

Besides the fantastic friends and writing partners I obtained, I walked away with the significant acceptance that I need to be submitting my writing for publication. Ginger and Doug’s enthusiastic encouragement of this felt really good. When professional editors (the senior editor for Burkley Putnam, for Christ’s sake, and Douglas Winter!) are almost upset with you for not having submitted your work, that means a lot. It did to me, anyway.
I will say that while I’ve sent stuff out before, I haven’t really focused on it. I haven’t really networked with other writers, either. For the most part I’ve been writing in a locked room, but I’m comfortable now with changing that.