Amazingly, applications for Taos Toolbox are still open! This means you can still have that brilliant writing career you’ve been dreaming about!
All you have to do is go to the Taos Toolbox web site, and follow the instructions thereon! If you’re accepted, you’ll join me and Nancy Kress and Carrie Vaughn in Taos next summer for an intense two-week master class in the writing of science fiction and fantasy— and then, on to literary glory and immortality!
I’m so excited about it, I can’t stop using exclamation points!!!
Incidentally, far too much of the response has fallen into one of two categories.
#1. “It’s so expensive!”
(Whiner. Sniveler. Firstly, it’s not expensive as workshops go. You even get catering! Secondly, this is literary immortality we’re talking about— it’s priceless! And thirdly, if money’s a problem, just take out a second mortgage! It’s easy! Interest rates are at an all-time low!)
#2. “What’s Walter’s problems with adverbs, anyway?”
(Do you have Asperger’s, or what? Do you really think this is a suitable topic to obsess about? Tell ya what— get accepted to my workshop, and I’ll damned well tell you what my problem with adverbs is!)
The gates are wide open, kids! You can walk through them, or not! But if you don’t, one of us is going to be kicking himself, and it ain’t gonna be me.
That’s all I’m sayin’.
1. I was a whining sniveler. I admit it. I whined so much that Walter made me a villain in one of his books and then killed me. But I was wrong. TT is worth every penny and then some. My testimonial is on the TT website. It's all true, every word. Walter made a man out of me.
2. I used to use adverbs copiously, I said abashedly. But after I went to TT, I hardly use adverbs at all. Ask anyone. They'll clearly state that my words are very, very truthful.
And the biggest, bestest part of TT? Two weeks of hanging out with an awesome group of people. You get that AND you get Walter and Nancy, too. Wow.
If only the altitude wouldn't kill me… )-:
No adverbs? I would find that quite extraordinarily difficult. You must try very hard not to extensively overuse adverbs. Can you cancel your adverbs by overly using subverbs?
I have had an idea for a short story, 1*10^23 Bottles of Beer. (The idea has been bouncing around in my head for a bit. I need to let it out.)
The story starts at a frat party and ends with the proton death of the universe. Many of the characters are furry singing bio robots. I think I might bang it out and put in an application tonight. My schedule is shifting a bit.
Note: My thought is that if I can turn that idea into a 250 word precision short story that works and works well, they can't turn me down. Can they?
Note 2.0: I just told the idea to a friend. She cried.
After 3,000+ publications, presentations, and broadcasts, I am ready to be an overnight success any day now.
The Aspbergers comment is deeper than it looks. I have been, for a client, researching and writing about his for many months, at my $110.00/hour consulting rate.
A fascinating book on a great thinker with severe Aspbergers, see:
The Strangest Man, by Graham Farmelo, which gets under the skin of one of the most baffling geniuses the world has ever seen.
Google for any number of rave reviews.
— Prof. Jonathan Vos Post
Damn. I'd do almost anything for literary immortality.
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