Clarion Week 5: Wednesday: Breathing Room
I just finished a rather hastily written first draft of a story that, in my mind at least, is all over the place and possibly rather sentimental and over dramatic. And light on the spec-fic and 'woo-woo." But I am way too damn close to have any idea at this point. So now It's all printed up and stapled and piled in the place where we leave our drafts for one another, and I'll throw myself on the fire and come through clean on the other end tomorrow like some sort of literary salamander. Or, at least, that's how it's supposed to go.
We last left off with Comic-Con weekend. Three of us scored some of the extra tickets that were floating around the Clarion offices, so we got up early Sunday and caught a cab to the convention center and got in line and saw David Tennant and the rest of the DW crew early that morning. Woot! It made up for missing the LOST panel, flaking on the Joe Hill panel, and missing the DW/Torchwood premiere the night before (saw the Tennant/Barrowman smooch on YouTube. SQUEE!). The panel was fab and the premiere of the finale--to air this Christmas here in the states--made me nearly cry. Just the idea that I have to have a new Doctor and go through all the heartbreak of losing an old doctor is too much for me in my current extra-emotional state of little to no sleep.
If I ever get the chance to go to CC again, I'll definitely be sure to go Saturday and not Sunday. Sat was fun day--so many people in costume, and the mood was light. Sunday felt desperate and aggressive and wasn't as much fun. We caught another fab panel that day: J. Michael Straczynski, writer of Babylon 5 among many other things. He was inspiring as hell: he told us to try and fail, because you'll never get what you want if you don't go for it... that kind of thing. It was just what I needed to be reminded of, at the beginning of week 5.
Time has folded in on itself. It feels as if we've been here forever. A roommate said it's like hell: we're celibate, the food is bad, and we get our souls crushed on a regular basis. That about sums it up. I know I sound cranky, and I apologize. It's just been a long week already, and it's only Wednesday. We're all coming to various states of exhaustion, homesickness, physical illness, and depression.
On the bright side, our only Clarion birthday is today, but we celebrated yesterday with chocolate cake and beer--and the birthday boy was (I think) surprised. It was a nice distraction.
This week and next, classes are team taught by Elizabeth Hand and Paul Park. They've really shaken things up, and the tone of the class shifts as each of them has the floor. Their styles of workshopping a story are also different from what we've done the previous four weeks; it's taken a couple of days to get used to, but I'm actually quite content with the change. I think we (or at least I) needed some stirring up at this point. Each class so far has focused on an aspect of writing (characterization, setting, etc.), and we've done writing exercises in class each day. Tonight is EHand's reading at Mysterious Galaxy, and I'm happy to be done with my story and able to relax. Next week, we're going to shift gears and class will focus on The Novel, which is a great way to end our Clarion experience and be set loose on the world.
But first, some dinner and some sleep.
Ta!
We last left off with Comic-Con weekend. Three of us scored some of the extra tickets that were floating around the Clarion offices, so we got up early Sunday and caught a cab to the convention center and got in line and saw David Tennant and the rest of the DW crew early that morning. Woot! It made up for missing the LOST panel, flaking on the Joe Hill panel, and missing the DW/Torchwood premiere the night before (saw the Tennant/Barrowman smooch on YouTube. SQUEE!). The panel was fab and the premiere of the finale--to air this Christmas here in the states--made me nearly cry. Just the idea that I have to have a new Doctor and go through all the heartbreak of losing an old doctor is too much for me in my current extra-emotional state of little to no sleep.
If I ever get the chance to go to CC again, I'll definitely be sure to go Saturday and not Sunday. Sat was fun day--so many people in costume, and the mood was light. Sunday felt desperate and aggressive and wasn't as much fun. We caught another fab panel that day: J. Michael Straczynski, writer of Babylon 5 among many other things. He was inspiring as hell: he told us to try and fail, because you'll never get what you want if you don't go for it... that kind of thing. It was just what I needed to be reminded of, at the beginning of week 5.
Time has folded in on itself. It feels as if we've been here forever. A roommate said it's like hell: we're celibate, the food is bad, and we get our souls crushed on a regular basis. That about sums it up. I know I sound cranky, and I apologize. It's just been a long week already, and it's only Wednesday. We're all coming to various states of exhaustion, homesickness, physical illness, and depression.
On the bright side, our only Clarion birthday is today, but we celebrated yesterday with chocolate cake and beer--and the birthday boy was (I think) surprised. It was a nice distraction.
This week and next, classes are team taught by Elizabeth Hand and Paul Park. They've really shaken things up, and the tone of the class shifts as each of them has the floor. Their styles of workshopping a story are also different from what we've done the previous four weeks; it's taken a couple of days to get used to, but I'm actually quite content with the change. I think we (or at least I) needed some stirring up at this point. Each class so far has focused on an aspect of writing (characterization, setting, etc.), and we've done writing exercises in class each day. Tonight is EHand's reading at Mysterious Galaxy, and I'm happy to be done with my story and able to relax. Next week, we're going to shift gears and class will focus on The Novel, which is a great way to end our Clarion experience and be set loose on the world.
But first, some dinner and some sleep.
Ta!