06/22/00 -- The Texas Phone Booth
You won't believe what comes out!
Sean Speech, Critiques, you know the drill for
first thing in the morning. Actually, before that, I read through
"Poor as Paupers, Rich as Royalty" before I went down to Van
Hoosen. I made a few more minor little tweaks, reprinted three out
of 9 pages, and turned it in this morning.
I still don't like it. But I got my piece
of paper back. :) :) :)
A handful of us went over to Subway for lunch,
brought the sandwiches back, then sat in the Owen lounge and brainstormed
quite a while this afternoon. I had enough time to run back up to my
room and try and do a little journal updating (I know I've been awful
about uploading ... I'm sorry ... No hurt I, I cute!) before running back
downstairs to meet up with folks to go have dinner at Coral Gables before
running off to Sean's reading at Archives.
Did you know that some places put American cheese
and provolone on their Ruben sammiches? I was a little unnerved by
that. So I got mine with swiss. Thank goodness.
Sean read a part from his book Galveston.
He told us, before he started, that we'd never seen him walk into a phone
booth and walk out a Texan. We saw it, then. And he held onto
the accent during the Q&A.
The bit of the novel he read was so funny ... and
so fucking disturbing, too. And I'm probably going to have to find
myself a copy of Galveston at some point when I get home (don't
want anymore books to haul home with me! too much stuff coming back,
already!). His writing just blows me away.
I remembered my camera this time (y'know, I've
only taken about 15 pictures in two weeks!) and I remembered to bring my
copy of Resurrection Man to have him sign it after the reading.
After the reading, we had a Meijer's run. I
needed caffeine. I needed salt & vinegar potato chips.
I'm thinking about the next story I'm going to
try and write while I'm here. I think I'm going to go out on a limb
and risk a first person. I'm no good with them. I'm really
not. In fact, I think I suck pretty hard at them. Which is why
I'm going to have to try one. A couple of people have done first
person stories so far and they've done them beautifully. I always
have a whole shitload of sentances that start with "I blahblahblah"
or "I dut-da-duh". I this. I that. I wish I
could tell first person the way so many wonderful writers do. Maybe
I'll use Nate. I know his voice well enough... and he's got enough
story to him that I could maybe do it. I'm just scared to fail two
stories in a row *wry smile*. But I won't learn if I don't push
myself.
I'm hoping to get one story done this weekend and
another one written during the week (if the crit load stays what it is
now).
I've really been enjoying this week. Sean
has so many wonderful things to say, so many funny stories, so many great
tactics/tools. I just hope I can manage to apply some of them with
this next story. I sat there this morning while Sean talked and
thought, Geez! I wish I'd heard all of this before I turned in my
story! But by that point it was a bit too late. They were
already on their way to be photocopied. Oh, well. I'll use
some of it when I start the next story... or the one after that.
Anyway, like I was saying, I've enjoyed Sean's week lots. I wish it
wasn't almost over.
I hope everything I'm hearing gets filtered away
in my head somewhere because half of what I've scribbled down I can't
read. And some of what I've written down doesn't make sense anymore
because I wrote down what I thought would jog my memory and it's all sort
of muddled there in my brain. Something about truth...
Hallelujah, brother. That was something
Sean talked about this morning. He preached to us about truth
according to the gospel of Emily Dickinson (Tell the truth, but tell it
silent) and gave us the gospel of Shakespeare according to Hamlet (The
whole purpose of the mousetrap is by indirection to find
direction.). A lot of that really resonated with me. Like I
said, I just hope it sticks.
Time's been doing weird things. I feel like
there is so much more I need to cram into the four weeks left. So
much writing, so much learning. The people here at Clarion this year
are all brilliant, all wonderful and when I think about having to leave
this environment, it breaks my head. I haven't felt so ... creative
... in a while. I haven't felt so much energy! in
longer. We talk about the next four weeks and what's yet to happen
and I cringe. Four weeks. Four more weeks and then it is all
over.
I feel like I've been here forever, but still
like I haven't been here long enough. Four weeks seems like forever
to go, but also like it won't be long enough.
I think I'm looking forward to going to MileHiCon
this, er, October? I wish I could afford to go to Worldcon, but
there is no way I can get the time off, or that I can afford the plane
ticket and hotel room. Maybe, if my finances are back in order and
I've got some vacation time saved up, I can go to World Fantasy Con this
fall, but I won't know about that until after I get home. Got email
from a coworker today and it sounds like we should have tons of stuff to
do when I get back. I just hope someone hasn't made off with my cube
while I've been away! :)
So here's the plan for the rest of the
night. Read. Critique. Sleep. Think about my next
story. Maybe not in that order. I'll let you know tomorrow if
there was a successful implementation of this plan.
Oh! Got a postcard from Muli today,
too. Thanks, hon! It was great! *hugs*