Last month I was down in Los Angeles for the 26th annual Writers of the Future awards, where I received my trophy, my cash payment upon publication, and 12 spanking new copies of the anthology.

I also did an over-massive writeup on the value of the Conest — as I perceive it — which can be found by clicking this link.

From my first entry until the time I won, were about two years. Though I’d been trying to break into fiction for much, much longer than that.

Contest Administrator Joni Labaqui and Contest coordinating judge (and author herself) K.D. Wentworth both confirmed that competition in the Writers of the Future slush is getting very, very good up in the top 10% — which is where the Honorable Mentions, Silver Honorable Mentions, Semi-Finalists, and Finalists are pulled from. I myself was an Honorable Mention for every entry, save the two Finalists I got, one of which won, and other which sold to Stan Schmidt at Analog Science Fiction & Fact.

For our class of 12 winners (plus one additional winner, who won in 2008 and who could not attend then, but did attend this year) I am pretty sure every single person had, at minimum, one or more semi-pro sales, beyond the Contest. And I think at least half of us also had SFWA-pro-level sales, on top of our wins. It was a very, very solid class — not a hobbyist in the bunch, from what I could tell — so the Contest is certainly not lacking for competetive skill and talent.

My personal feeling is that Writers of the Future is darn near the best ‘value and prestige’ entry point into professional science fiction and fantasy publication in existence. Mainly because you can’t really hang a price tag on the value of the instruction at the workshop, which includes Tim Powers, Wentworth, and many of the judges: Jerry Pournelle, Eric Flint, Mike Resnick, Kevin J. Anderson and his wife Rebecca Moesta, Dave Wolverton, and many others. Being able to spend a few days with that group, having unheard-of familiarty and access to these highly accomplished professionals, I don’t know where an entry-level newbie professional finds that kind of exposure and knowledge — not for free.

Anyway, the Scientology concern is one that always seems to come up, but when I was down there nobody ever talked about the church, nor mentioned it, nor did anyone try to use us as winners to promote the religion. If Scientologists run the Contest, they keep it 100% focused on writing (and the artists, for Illustrators of the Future) and there was no blurring the line between church and Contest.

Jay Lake said it’s a hell of a ride, and he’s right. The Contest also has a hell of a legacy. Boatloads of professionals come out of it, all the time — some of the earliest winners are now judges themselves. It’s a great tradition, and it’s a pleasure to have graduated up out of it as the latest Utah guy to pass through as a writer winner.

Now, my goal — on top of further exploits in professional publishing — is to win the Illustrator’s award. (evil grin)

That being said the person (Kristi Wachter) who posted all the anti-Scientology material is known to harass people who are and businesses who employ Scientologists by going through their trash and publishing their business secrets and private lives on the internet – even if said material has nothing to do with the religion whatsoever – I mean don’t all humans still have a right to privacy (especially about financial and sexual matters) even if we don’t like them?
Oh and the man she applauds for ‘standing up’ – Keith Henson – physically and verbally harassed friends of mine in front of me back when I was staff. I tell you what other than the occasional poorly timed phone call (which I just ignore and don’t pick up) I’ve never had any issue with the CoS bugging me or hurting me or making me do anything I didn’t want to do – I’ve always been able to say NO. I cannot say the same for the antics of Keith Henson who has even harassed friends of Scientologist who aren’t Scientologists – part of the reason he was convicted in the first place and you can look up the court records in Riverside County’s website if you wish. Rather than send you to a church affiliated site – to avoid being called biased – I send you to his own daughter’s site about her experiences growing up with him and being molested – http://valerieaurora.org/keith.html.
When I was on staff I had tomatoes thrown at me, people spit in my face, and all sort of other evil bigoted things done to me by anti-Scientologists, the worst punishment I got from a Scientologist (for something which I did wrong and actually deserved some sort demerit for) was to clean some a toilets on my free time – hell I do that for my own house nowadays anyway! I’ve even had anti-Scientologists who’ve emailed my husband (not a Scientologist) and tell him to kill himself just because he is married to me – now that’s insane!

Personally I LOVE science – but as most in the field I acknowledge people can use it for good and bad goals. As a social scientist ‘in-training’ myself critiques of modern psychology’s overdependence of drugging and labelling are not just a purview of Scientologists but of many of those in the field itself. In fact the group she calls a ‘front group’ CCHR was co-founded by the well known and respected Dr. Thomas Szasz – himself an psychiatrist and more importantly an Atheist who doesn’t even believe in religion personally, though he welcomes all who wish to fight the therapeutic state (see http://www.szasz.com/enemies.html).

Many science fiction writers and others have commented on the issues and injustices surrounding this issue and both Sci-Fi and Fantasy is filled with such commentary, one need only pick up a history book to see that science isn’t always applied toward good things but has been and can be used by individuals and governments to harm people. I especially loved the episodes of BtVS about the ‘Initiative’ and of course ‘Firefly/Serenity’ comes to mind.
My whole time engaged in the groups Wachter calls ‘front groups’ rarely (maybe once every few months out of hundreds of volunteers a month) did I hear a person who was engaged in those activities want to use it for anything other than just helping make the world a better place. Most Scientologist, just like most Christians or Jews or others who volunteer at charities related to their faith know that the main purpose is to help one’s fellow man, NOT to proselytize. Those volunteers who really didn’t understand that the purpose was supposed to ‘help people’ NOT to ‘make more Scientologists’ were then told it would be better for them to for the church directly rather than our groups as we only wanted people who understood that this was just a way of helping those in the world around us and if they wanted to proselytize they should volunteer at an org or mission (Scientology term for an individual parish or branch) as THAT was the place for such activities NOT in places like ABLE or Narconon, etc. I’ve heard the same policies apply to Author Services staff who are there to help forward Hubbard’s ideas of helping science fiction author’s get their start. I think WoTF winners experiences here are a testament to the fact that the church likes to keep Hubbard’s secular stuff and religious stuff as split as possible – partly so as not to irritate people but more importantly because it’s the right thing to do to respect other people’s religious inclinations and not push your views in their face all the time at inappropriate venues.

As a general rule in Scientology you’re not supposed to proselytize to someone unless they express interest first – the term used in Scientology is ‘a reach.’ Of course like any group religious or otherwise Scientology wants more members – but the policy is supposed to be that the person must first be ‘a reach’ or reaching for it before you even attempt to proselytize. I wish sometimes other religions had similar policies but sadly this is not the case.

Scientology also has strict policies on who is eligible so many of the persons participating in such social betterment programs were either not eligible to do Scientology services due to either criminal background or excessive drug use or just because they are children and thus too young to decide for themselves anyway so obviously proselytizing would actual hurt the ability to help those people in any event. Of the hundreds of thousands who have been gotten off drugs from Narconon I only know of like three who later decided to ‘check out’ the Scientology stuff and in all the cases it was years and years later through an unrelated friend that they decided to try Scientology – and they had to prove they no longer had those kinds of issues and were thus now eligible to participate in Scientology services. As a general rule people just go back to trying to recreate their lives without the burdens of whatever the hell landed them in such an ABLE group in the first place, practising whatever their faith or no faith they had before.

Sure there have been idiots who’ve misapplied it and the horrible incident (ruled by the coroner as an accident) of Lisa that Wachter referred to is one example. But Scientology has never gone around killing its enemies like other faiths and philosophies have in their pasts or even now if you live in the Middle East or some parts of Africa. Oh and that person shouldn’t have rung your door trying to sell a Dianetics book, that’s also considered an ‘off-policy’ or wrong way. Per Scientology rules (policy) they should either know you from somewhere else first or you should be listed as ‘a reach’ from having called off an ad or TV commercial or having walked up to a booth during some public event. Again though we are all human and his/her mistake was probably due to enthusiasm and a lack of policy knowledge rather than any malice. Remember people view tend to view any philosophy they believe in – be it secular or religious – to be good and of course naturally want to share it with others because we are social creatures by nature. Oh and their are idiots in all philosophies be they secular or religious.

For the record I’ve never seen any such references to DC planes or Zenu in official Scientology books/texts ONLY in anti-Scientology sites online and in an anti-Scientology book I read before trying Scientology services out. I’ve read the staff only policies, upper thingy’s and whatnot (trying to avoid too many Scientology terms) – and to be completely honest without giving any details as I promised to keep the details secret – and I value my ‘word as my bond’ even after leaving a particular faith – it’s more about how to communicate better with people, how to dress better, and cleaning tips than any of the claptrap I’ve seen said on the internet. Like I said I prefer Buddhist practise because it’s more leisurely and suits my ethnic identity better – but I have nothing against Scientology so can give a better, more objective view on the matter.

In conclusion my experiences are that the “anti’s” have been evil and cruel to those who are even remotely affiliated with CoS members, while CoS members usually commit errors in over-enthusiasm or lack of understanding the general culture around them, NOT out of anything intentionally malicious or vindictive. Oh and I found this because I am a HUGE SGU fan (6th place on my TiVo line-up) then saw this post and thought I’d give a bit of my experiences. Ciao!

Bye!

http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1012148.ece

Part One of Three. Read the other two parts if you want a clearer picture of where the money comes from.

Winning this contest, after learning about it, became one of my early writing goals and as described above, it’s easy to see how well I did with that – it got there, but just barely.

I’m posting because one of the things that occurred to me most strongly as I spent time with Joni and John the other weekend was that these tired old statements about the Scientologists and Scientology really need to be retired – at least as far as the contest is concerned. It truly has nothing to do with the Scientology religion, or with “converting” contestants to Scientology. Instead, it pays a tribute to an aspect of L. Ron Hubbard that predates the Church of Scientology – his writing career and his early efforts in working with new writers and developing a system of writing instruction. Like or dislike Hubbard’s writing or ideas, he was a very interesting man. Those of us who were there those two years laughed at the animatronic Battlefield Earth figure (“Stoopid HUUUUMANNN!”) and really took a good look at and learned from Mr. Hubbard’s writing-related advice, writing, and his factual life experiences, history and non-Church-related ideas.

Hubbard, his ideas, and the contest which is carrying on one of his non-Scientology interests, and the broad group of field-leading writers who have either served as judges in the past, or who are currently serving, plus the good points of the contest itself – identifying and giving a boost to new writers who genuinely have talent and stories to offer to readers – it really is moving forward rapidly. These complaints are not only kind of abusive and invalid as far as the contest is concerned, they’re really out of date, too. I am very proud of what the contest has accomplished in recent years and I feel strongly they have overcome the taint of having me in their facility not one, but TWO years in a row. And that’s what I have to say about that.

Per KD Wentworth’s comments in the WOTF forum, an HM means she liked the story well enough to read the whole thing, some aspects of your story telling craft were extremely well done, and yours was in the top 10-15% of entries.

My near misses in the contest have given me the encouragement to keep going, knowing if I continue to work hard and learn more of the craft, I’ll eventually start selling stories. Good luck to you. Maybe we’ll both be winners in the same quarter and attend the workshop together. (The workshop is why I keep entering. The money and marketing help is nice, but I really want the workshop.)

Fans identify closely with the writers they admire, so the behavior you describe is understandable. It’s an intimate connection, not the same as someone who performs a service for you.

As for actors and celebrities voicing political opinions: They’re people. They have the same right to speak out that you or I do.