06/11/00 -- Do I have to get up?

The alarm went off way too early.  (It's deja vu all over again.)  The only reason it went off too early is because I couldn't fall asleep last night.

I don't know why.  But I couldn't.  I was up too late (and felt a little guilty showering after midnight to get rid of Otter Pop stickiness).  I don't know if it was the heat or the humidity or the excitement and nervousness, or some combination of the above.  I really need a fan.  Right now, the bay fan in my desktop is the only thing moving air in my room.  *snrk*

So the alarm went off at 10am.  I got dressed, got my printer hooked up to my desktop and working, got my fiction pulled over to my desktop from my laptop, then started working on a door sign that says Aynjel (instead of Stacey).

The door sign was interrupted by the trip to Denny's for breakfast.

I've never waited half an hour to get seated at a Denny's, but I guess that with the twelve of us, it was going to take a while.

While we were waiting (those of us outside getting rained on and munched by mozzies -- we had bug-off, but didn't figure we'd need to to go to breakfast *grr*), the manager stuck a sign on the door saying that because of a problem with the cook line, they couldn't take any more customers.

We all looked at Mark.

Finally, we got seated.  The poor waitress was a wreck, but we actually got taken care of pretty fast.  And then found out that the cooks were cooking standing in several inches of water to fix our food.  Wowzers.

Then we split up.  Some of us went for another Meijer's run.  The rest of us came back to Owen to try and do something between then and the orientation dinner.  And what I did was revamp my journal to run in frames so I don't hog up nearly so much disk space as I have been lately, and then I started a story.  I got about 500 words of it out before it was time to head over to Van Hoosen hall for our dinner and informal orientation.

We all introduced ourselves round the circle in the room where we'd be doing our workshopping and we met Suzy.  I started to get nervous.  We broke for dinner.  I stared at the cold cuts while the folks in front of me grabbed them, and cheese and potato salad and veggies.  I got even more nervous.  It wasn't the cold cuts that were out to get me, either.  I was suddenly terrified.  This is real.  This is happening.  Now.

What if the story I started earlier turns out not to be worth the effort?  What if I don't finish it?  What if I don't write anything else?  What if everything I start writing turns out to be not worth the effort?  Or dies mid-stream?  I'm still terrified.

If we don't wind up with enough stories to crit over the first couple of days, we're going to dip into our submission stories... which we won't crit if we don't have to.  I'm actually kinda bummed about that.  I'd love a little more feedback on "Face of God".  But maybe the stuff I hear during crit sessions and when the stories I write (I will write while I'm here!) are critted will help me take a second look at "Face of God".  I really like that story and would love for it to find a home ... somewhere.

So we had dinner, we met, we heard all of the basics from Lister.  We heard the basics from Suzy.  We got our immediate questions answered (though I'm still not certain what in the world I have to do to get my computer actually onto the 'net ... so this will all get uploaded as soon as I get connected).  We got our fans (mine wound up not working so Buck loaned me his until tomorrow morning when I'll haul the big box window fan back downstairs and try to get one that works).  Then we were left to our own devices again.

I worked on my story s'more.  I'm still not sure it's going to be worth the effort.  It's weird.  It's, well, it's not something I've done before.  It's a ghost story.  I suck at ghost stories because I just don't know how to make them scary.  Heck, I still don't know if the stuff I've been writing is really horror... or just fucked up angsty twisted stuff.  I guess it doesn't really matter.  It just matters that I get better, get them polished, and get them homes.  No sense in them languishing in my trunk.  (Heh.  Trunk. I need to make a folder on my harddrive and call it "trunk".  That's where I'll put all of the stories that've gotten a 'No thanks' from everywhere I can think to send them.  *sigh*)

Anyway... it's 10:30.  I should try and work on my story s'more.  Maybe I'll get it done tonight (since I'm not anywhere near sleepy in spite of how little I slept last night) and I can print it out and turn it in first thing tomorrow morning so it can get critted on Tuesday.  If I do that, then I can maybe schedule my conference with Suzy for Wednesday or Thursday.  I wanna get that in later in the week after I get a story in.  Lord only knows why.

I'll work on it for another hour or so, grab a shower, and try to sleep.  Maybe.

I'm trying to get in my sleep-dep early so at the end, when everyone else is psychotic from no sleep, I'll just pass out every night because I have to.

 

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So did I mention that I haven't been able to sleep?  It's a quarter to 1 in the morning and I'm just short of 2000 words on this story.  I still don't know if it is worth the effort.  And I'm writing it in chunks -- a chunk at the beginning, a chunk at the end, a chunk in the middle-end, a chunk before the middle, lather, rinse, repeat.  It should finish around 5000 words.  Maybe.  Maybe a little less than that.  I know what's going to happen, it's just a matter of getting it there.

I spent some time wandering the halls procrastinating.  Hello?  I'm at day one (night one?) and I'm procrastinating already.  This doesn't bode well for the next six weeks.

I didn't mean it when I said I wanted to get my sleep-dep in early.  Honest!  I wanna sleep.  I'm just too awake.  Which means I may end up needing caffeine in the morning.  Ugh, not a habit I want to get back into.

Oh, and did I mention that the showers make me feel claustrophobic?  Ugh.

Take two for the "write for another hour or so, grab a shower, and try to sleep" plan.

Oh, and I got my first mosquito bite.  While waiting for breakfast at Denny's.  It itches.  Gotta get some calamine lotion or something tomorrow at Meijer's.