Carrie Callahan

Finishing NaNoWriMo is always a great feeling! Each time I manage to cross that finish line, I feel like a "real writer"--whatever that means. This year, though, I may have finished the month, but I have yet to finish the novel. The manuscript I'm working on is called Blood Tramp Blues , and it follows a hitchhiker who is suddenly confronted with the cosmic indifference of the universe when she's saved from a lovecraftian monster by a woman with powers via blood sacrifice--the eponymous Blood Tramp. And it's 54,000 words in with four fat chapters to go (they might have to be split into more--we'll see). I'm trying to explore what we do when faced with cosmic indifference. Most people assume that facing your own insignificance leads inevitably to destructive nihilism, but I disagree. I ascribe more to the optimistic nihilist 's perspective: so what if there's no meaning? That gives me ultimate control over what I decide has meaning in my life....

It's so easy to lose sight of the goals we have--to feel like we won't fail up, but just keep failing. When I submitted the Clarion application that was ultimately (but kindly) rejected, I also submitted the attached story someplace else: the Writers of the Future contest. For the first time, I wasn't nervous about my submission. I had written what was literally the best story I could at that time, so if I failed it was just because I wasn't there yet and that's OK. Then June rolled around. I went through the WotF forums and found that a lot of people were receiving rejections, so I waited patiently for my email. Only I didn't get an e-mail--I got a phone call. The director of the contest, Joni Labaqui, called me to tell me that I was one of eight finalists for the quarter and that she'd let me know in a couple weeks if I was a winner. I thanked her, and smiled, and did a little dance. Settling in for the wait, I did my best to stay calm, but by wee...