Madison's Happiest CornerFor the benefit of my three loyal readers who have no clue what I'm up to: I was in Madison, Wisconsin for Wiscon for the weekend. It was really just an excuse to reunite with a bunch of Clarion West friends.
I knew I was going to be getting home late last night so I took today off which was a good thing because I was so tired I would have been worthless.
But I'd expected to get all kinds of stuff done like unpacking and organizing photos and writing a kickass blog post and these things barely happened. What did happen is I had an epic two-hour, underneath-the-covers nap. Often when I nap I do it on the couch. When I do nap on the bed, it's only on top of the covers.
I'm not sure where these rules originated. I think at one point I had a theory about making sure my body didn't get confused between sleeping and napping. Regardless, I started dragging around 11:30am so I crawled back in bed and it was brilliant. If I was a hobbit, I'd write a song about it to sing when I went on long adventures.
I might do a better Wiscon post later. I have tons of photos. I waited too long and don't have time to do anything better than this tonight.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 9:30 PM
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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Long Busy Week, Busy Weekend
Kira, An, and I enjoy our reunion by hanging out with our laptops. That's how Clarion West love works.
I'm going to quickly touch on all the things I never got around to blogging about in the last week or two.
Did you see Sandra Day O'Connor on the Daily Show? I'd link to the Hulu clips but there's already enough going on here. She has got to be the coolest Supreme Court justice ever. *So cute.* As we were watching I told Bob I was going to go work on Monday and ready my favorite Justice O'Connor opinions. He said, "Sure thing, Lisa Simpson."
An does finishing touches on Chocolate Disaster cake. I tried to impress upon Bob just how lucky he was that An made his birthday cake. I think he got it.
We had a fire drill at the office. I'm the safety officer of my business and a couple weeks ago, José from the business next door informed me he was the floor warden and gave me my orange safety vest. I said, "So, if something bad happens you'll tell us what to do?" He said, "If something bad happens, grab your shit and get out of here."
The alarm went off and co-worker and I said, "Huh, wonder what we should do?"
Someone told us we had to evacuate. I said, "I wonder if I should wear my orange safety vest?" Since I already couldn't remember where it was, I grabbed my purse and An's and Kira's laptops and carried them down 10 flights of stairs. An and Kira were out and about enjoying downtown and just in case it wasn't a drill, I didn't want their laptops to fry. Take note Clarionites. I have your back.
Bob's birthday celebration with his new Clarion West friends.
I keep putting my giant coat away in hopes that I'm done with it. Much as I love it when it's cold and awful outside, it triples my size and is just one more thing to lug around. I keep hanging it up and then pulling it back out again. I'm hoping to take it to the cleaners and pack it away until November. Soon.
Now we have a giant Clarion West reunion and we celebrate by getting out our laptops. I don't think "geek" covers it. From the left, clockwise: An, Eden, Caren, me and Kira.
The State of Washington just made me replace my license plates. I'm not sure why. I guess it's been 5 years? For $20 more I could keep my same plates. Screw that. In the long run it's probably a good idea because when parking I often stop when the front bumper hits something and that front license plate was looking pretty ratty.
Food! I include this photos so my other classmates will see that I will cook excellent food if they visit. We had sweet potato enchiladas with chicken, no cheese and another batch with black beans and cheese. Here's the recipe we adapted from. Also fruit salad and sausages and snacky stuff. Also this photo includes Kyle who I don't have a URL for.
Escape from Witch Mountain was one of my favorite movies and books when I was a kid way back in the 70's or whenever the first version came out. I was moderately excited about the re-do except I saw the trailer and hated it. I don't out of hand, hate The Rock, but the trailer made this look extra-ordinarily stupid and unless a reliable source tells me otherwise, I will not see this movie.
Clarion West 08 classmates if you visit me, you can use my fancy wine opener and feel like a rock star while everyone takes your picture.
I'm surprised Office Despot can stay in business. EVERY single week we get a new catalog and coupon from them for our business plus another from the business that was in the space before us. Our company has an account with an office supply company and I dread using them because their prices are 50-70% higher. I don't understand how that even works.
Oh look, Clarion geeks and laptops. This photo includes the same suspects plus Rose and Carlton
Now we're all caught up. I'm going to get something to eat and sit here biting my nails until the Battlestar Galactica Finale starts.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 5:56 PM
Friday, March 20, 2009
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Me, Kira, An, Eden, Rose, Caren and Carlton in the world's best shower.
We had a Clarion West 08 get together over the weekend which was super fun and I have photos and tales to tell but as per always, no time to tell the story at the moment. More to come, probably this weekend as I have another busy week.
Here's a very short story that has nothing to do with the weekend: this morning on the way to work our bus passed a bus pulled over on the shoulder. I thought to myself, "Gee, I'm glad I've never been a bus that broke down."
Ha ha because about five minutes later our bus broke down.
The best part of the story is that it wasn't a big deal. People barely looked up from their books and newspapers. No one fussed or got ornery.
Ten minutes later the bus after us parked in front of us. We got off our bus and tiptoed along the side of the freeway and loaded onto the other bus. Lots of people laughed and made jokes. And another five minutes and we were on our way. A C-Tran miracle.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 7:03 PM
Monday, March 16, 2009
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NaNoWriMo Wrap-UpI didn't sign up officially. This was self-directed NaNo. I fully expected to fail when I started mostly because my work days are long and I didn't think I would be able to do 1667 words on those days. Especially not for a full month.
I was wrong.
The final word count is around 50,300. I can't tell you the exact number because it's trapped in the guts of the dead computer. My best day was 2630. My worst day was 725 but that day I was working on another writing project that I didn't count toward my NaNo. I wrote prose-fiction every single day for 30 days and now it feels like habit.
My NaNo project was expanding a story from another project. I was only partially successful. I wrote about 44,000 words on that and it has a beginning, middle and end although there's a little gap in there that I haven't figured out how to fix yet. I'm confident it's dreadful but I'll be curious to look at it down the road and see if it's as bad as I think.
I realized about three days in that I had the wrong POV character and shifting the focus would involve a complete re-thinking which I didn't have time to do under the circumstances. I may revisit the story with a different approach on the POV. I haven't decided. My expectation was that it was an exercise. I didn't expect to write a real novel in a month.
With my leftover words I wrote three first drafts of short stories.
I've never been a big fan of word count goals because I don't work that way. I wrote something about my process in April of this year. Choice quote if you don't want to go back and read it:
A typical writing cycle for me goes: get new idea, rabid excitement, research and tons of writing, get stuck, dread the writing chair, avoid writing, hate myself for avoiding it, despair, force myself to go back to it, find what interested me in the first place, finish story.It's funny to read this after Clarion West.
For the record, there's a bale of stuff in my files that's still waiting for the part that comes after "despair."
At CW I had to finish a short story in a week so I had to get over the despair (and if you read my posts while I was there, despair was still a part of the process) and move on very quickly. So the lesson there was that stories feel like crap in the middle. Get over it and do it any way. Or put another way, I could write more quickly than I thought I could because I didn't have the luxury of being stuck for very long.
I also learned that I can write when I'm tired, hungry, cranky and not in the mood for writing. I can write late at night. I can write after lunch. With music. After interruptions. I had previously believed I could only write first thing in the morning and if I was interrupted the day was ruined. (Barely exaggerating.)
When I got home from CW, I had a hard time getting back into writing again and figuring out how to balance real life with writing. NaNo was a good exercise to make me find time to write every day and get over the idea that CW offered an ideal writing environment that could never repeated at home. And I learned I can write after work. I can write on the bus. I can write before bed after an evening function that includes adult beverages. I could write in short little bursts between other activities, although still not my ideal.
Now I'm a fan of the word count although 50K in a month is too many. My writing was exceptionally sloppy at that pace. I'd rather write less words that come out on the page more orderly. My goal for December is 20K.
Another thought that I don't know where to shoehorn in is that having and sticking to word goals (and starting in January, submitting things for publication goals) is that I rarely feel panicked and annoyed that I'm not writing.
What didn't happen during November? I only read one book. I only looked at the Sunday NYT one time which was the 30th after I reached my goal. I had to schedule my TV time so I wouldn't get too far behind. (Yeah, I realize TV would be an awesome thing to give up. But I don't watch that much and I don't want to give it up.) I exercised about 15 minutes a week. I owe a zillion emails. I only did about a third of my normal autumn garden activities. I'm not beating myself up too much on this because we had a super busy month with social activities. I feel I'm on the verge of finding a way to balance it all. But I do wish I read more books.
I feel like I have lots more to say on this but also like I've gone on long enough. It's very funny to look back on how much things have changed in a year.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 1:23 PM
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
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Writing Not At Clarion West
I'm a little surprised by how much trouble I'm having writing at home. At home was clearly too distracting so today I tried writing in a student lounge at Clark College which was perfect. Nice open space with comfy couch. I intended to bring my camera but forgot so you get a photo of the cookies I made last weekend. Very few people. No Internet connection.
And still I had a hard time focusing. I made decent progress and did another 800 words tonight after dinner. I might get a draft finished by tomorrow. argh. It feels really half-assed right now.
I guess I felt like things were so busy at Clarion that it would be easier at home. But I took for granted that at CW 99% of my brain was devoted to all things story. And now that I'm home I have to devote at least half my brain to my other responsibilities. And even then I feel like my brain is ruined.
Before CW when I got those phone calls to remind me about appointments I always said, "I know, I'll be there." Since I got home I keep saying, "Shit, what time?" I usually feel like I have my act together and now I can barely remember where I parked my car.
Maybe this is all part of the process. But I'm pushing to write this new story and I'm not enjoying as much as I thought I would. I think I'm going to take one day next weekend for a no computer day and a no writing day. I just downloaded a bunch of stories to my iPod (EscapePod and PodCastle) and I can take some walks and putter in the yard. And make some pies. I haven't had one single homemade pie yet this summer. Tragedy.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 9:43 PM
Saturday, August 16, 2008
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Re-GroupingThis is my first full weekend back and I'm still trying to get my act together.
There are so many things to do that I keep circling around the house thinking of all the stuff to take care of but not feeling like doing any of it.
I thought I'd get to a point where I'd have some Clarion West definitive wrap up things to say but I'm not there yet. I'm still floating around the edge of the bubble.
The photo above is my new shower. My old bathtub was totally chipped and ugly and horrible and the new one is so pretty I could sit in it for days. I'm going to pull out some bubble bath and spend some quality time in there this weekend. Maybe reading from the ginormous pile of magazines that is threatening to take over the house.
I'm afraid to count how many books I accumulated while I was in Seattle. It's more than 10 but I think less than 20. Plus I bought that DREADFUL vampire book at the midnight book party with some of my classmates It's not dreadful fun, it's dreadful bad. It's making me mad to even have it in my house but I have to read it to find out what happens. I need to get through that and trying to work my way through the magazines. The bus rides will save me.
This is a hole in the wall shared with the bathroom. I'm guessing some sort of installation gone wrong moment. No one noticed except me. We're doing an end of the job inspection today and I'll point that out.
Last night I left my bottle of wine uncorked on the counter and I can see those two annoying fruit flies that were in the house floating in it. Victory?
Today I'm getting back into my routine and I got my haircut and went to Safeway and now the laundry is going.
Before I left I cleaned out my favorite homemade granola and my chocolate chip cookie stash so I'm making those this afternoon. I also cleaned out all my office snacks so all week I had to chew my hand all afternoon. I just bought Wheat Thins (big) and chips and an Odwalla bar and next week I'm hoping I can do See's run with Shay to re-stock my chocolate supply.
Dahlias from the garden.
Yesterday I ate a pastrami sandwich that should have its own national holiday. I only finished half at lunch so I ate the rest for dinner and then I woke up at 3:30a and had to drink a huge glass of water.
Time to get rolling on my chores.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 2:29 PM
Friday, August 08, 2008
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Re-Entry: The Saga Continues
I'm getting back in the swing right now.
These are the pumpkin patch out front which is on fire! Yay. The pumpkin patches in the back are looking a little peaked.
Tonight I went back to yoga for the first time and OMIGOD.
That woman tried to kill me. I don't think it's a coincidence that her last name is Payne.
I can't believe my fitness level could regress so badly so quickly.
This wasn't even the hard class.
Right now my arms and legs feel like spaghetti.
She had us do this yogi pain pose that we had to hold forever. I had tears in my eyes and was thinking about folding up my mat and leaving.
Normally, you're supposed to know your limits but when I put my arms down she totally name checked me.
Then she went into this thing about how this is like our lives and we don't quit when it gets hard. We keep fighting. Frack.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 9:05 PM
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
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Clarion West: Week 7
The house where we lived at the workshop was on fraternity row near University of Washington which means it was noisy. There was a frat house behind us that played all sorts of strange musical choices at pretty much whatever time of day suited them.
One night we were all leaving the house to go to a party and one of the frat boys was on the deck and he leaned over and started asking questions like, "So you guys are writers?"
I guess someone said something about a party and Raj said "I've been wanting to go over there ever since I saw that broken window."
So, you know where you don't want your car to die?
Science fiction camp.
We jumped in my car to go pick up the t-shirts and it was dead. I know zero about cars except where to put the gas in and how to take it in for regular service. In my defense, I know about lots of other things.
The gang was gathered out back and I said, "Does anyone know about cars?"
And the answer back was: "No." Then someone offered keys so we could use his car. My response: I want my car to work.
Chuckles was the one (and Owen) who came out and checked that it was indeed dead. I like how people ask you: Did you leave the lights on?
Why yes, does that matter?
Actually, my lights turn off by themselves.
In the end, I dealt with it myself. After some calls, a jump and some diagnostic running around, the car was given a clean bill of health and hasn't had any more problems. I suspect a door was left ajar or the dome-light on.
This one is for Shane.
After a couple weeks in Seattle I lost all track of the known universe. I didn't know the news. I never knew the date. Even if I got the day I still got confused on the month and even the year. I almost wrote 1998 or September in my notebook a couple of times.
Also my personal hygiene went completely out the window. I could never remember when I bathed last and didn't really care. I wore the same clothes for days in a row. I wore make-up only 2 times in 6 weeks.
Also, everything in Seattle seems to cost an amount to maximize the accumulation of tons of change. $1.05; $8.26; $11.33. I either didn't have enough change or a pocket filled with it.
When I got home, Bob and I went to the Clark County Fair to have milkshakes (and baked potatoes, and grilled corn) and see baby pigs, goats, sheep and cows. Also grown-up versions of these things. We also went through a tent that was like walking into a used car lot. People wanted us to sign up for vinyl siding, some sort of magnetic strip that cured pain (?), loan consolidation and tapes that taught you how to be successful. We visited the Clark College booth and then signed up for a chimney sweep.
We also tried to win giant stuffed animals. Just kidding. What am I going to do with an 8 foot dragon?
But I really wanted to see Queensryche.
Bob's review is here.
I'm out of steam so I will just say that they were awesome and that this is the first time I've seen them live. My favorite album is Rage for Order which I only own on cassette and I'm such a luddite I can still listen to it in my car. I need to get the .mp3 version.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 8:04 PM
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
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Pritpaul and Shane share a momentClarion Week 6:
Chuck Palahniuk
This is the first of what will probably several wrap up posts on Clarion West 2008. I've still got a lot to digest and I don't know where to start so these are notes, probably disjointed, that I've kept since my last post.
Every Friday night we had a party which was partly farewell to the departing instructor and partly party-on for the local Clarion West/Sci-fi community and partly for us to network and get to know people in the field.
The week 5 party was in Bellevue. We followed Caren over there so we wouldn't get lost. (She's local and also one of the best people to follow when driving because she doesn't drive too fast and she uses her turn indicator so you can figure out what's going on.)
Caren in the CW 08 Viking hat and Owen
We left the party at 10:30p on our own and used Kira's GPS to get home. He's named Oliver and he has an Australian accent. He doesn't know Washington so when we had to get on Washington 520 he told us to get on Western Australia 520. He was awesome.
When I first arrived in Seattle I was wigged about driving because I'm a nervous driver to begin with and I hate driving in a place I don't know and then we added a carload of people who need a ride into the mix. The first weekend I was like a 99 year old neurotic cat lady who lost her medication trying to get where we had to be and park and be on time and keep everyone alive and in one piece. Several of the same people were in my car for the last party, 6 weeks later, and they noticed that I was way more relaxed. However, during the whole 6 weeks there was only one outing where I didn't have to make a U-turn.
An in the CW 08 Viking hat with Christopher looking on.
It was an interesting emotional arc I went through over those 6 weeks. I had a really hard time the first week. It was tough to get settled in. I could not sleep as everyone who has been keeping up with these posts knows. I never did get the sleep thing going. I started to envy my computer for the ease with which it went to sleep. I took a 2.5 hour nap the day I got home and slept 10.5 hours that night. I did only 8 hours last night and I'm feeling droopy now and may go lay down as soon as I finish this post.
After the first week I settled in and then I felt panicked about leaving because I couldn't imagine that I'd ever want to leave my new friends and have to go back and work and cook my own food and do chores and not think about writing all the time.
Then by the end of week 5 I was done. I wanted my own bed, my own bathroom and my normal toilet paper. Sysco has the sorriest excuse for paper products in the known Universe. The paper towels also = doodoo. I wanted to take a shower in stall big enough to turn around in. I'm not a big person I could barely shampoo my hair without poking myself in the eye with my elbow. I wanted to be in charge of my own food supply. Boy it's amazing how quickly good eating habits can go to pot. By the end, potato chips and peanut butter pretzels with red wine as a dinner alternative seemed perfectly acceptable.
I told Kira to try to look cute and she did.
When I prepared for the workshop I brought a bunch of ideas and I brought two stories that already had first drafts just in case I got in a panic, I would have something to fall back on. I got in a panic in week #6. One of the things we were encouraged to do is take risks and try things we'd never tried before. My first 4 stories had the same tone, setting, narrative style, etc. I was perfectly happy with my style but I thought I should at least try something different. Plus I did this structural trick which is too hard to explain here but which basically served to tie one hand behind my back.
I didn't think I was going to be able to pull it off in time so I thought back to the two stories I'd brought with me. And I didn't think either of those was good enough. My point being that after 5 weeks of the workshop I already thought I'd improved beyond stories that were barely a few months old. I have a stack of stuff for revisions. I have hope for them all.
In fact, this was a major lesson of the workshop that every story I panicked in the middle and thought was an unfixable disaster and all of them I managed to pull something out to put in front of the class.
Waiting at Chuck's reading. L to R Front row: Maggie, Kristin, Owen, Caren, Eden, Raj and Tracy. Back Row starting with blue shirt: Jim, Carol, Kira and Douglas (They're working on stories for Wednesday.)
Chuck Palahnuik was our week 6 teacher and by the time he arrived, I'd lost my ability to be intimidated. A huge contrast to the first week when everything intimidated me.
"I love rules," he said. Here are some Chuck rules as best as I can decipher from my notebook:
Don't use "to be" or "to have" depict with a physical action.
No abstract words (e.g. big, nice, tall, great).
No intangibles (e.g. love, remember, desire, think, consider). Make everything tangible.
No screaming the world through your characters. (e.g. "She heard a bell ring." Instead: "The bell rang.")
Submerge your "I's" This is when you're writing in the first person you want to use as few "I's" as you can. Try to convert to Mine or My. This was the only week I did a first person story because I don't like to write in the first person and it took me HOURS to submerge my I's. But I got a shout out for doing a good job on that.
This is harder to explain but Chuck wants you to know your character's area of expertise a consistent way the character notices things, gestures, reacts to things. Watch what is dramatized through gesture.
Never forward your plot through dialogue. This is the least effective way. The best way is through action/discovery.
Wed the ordinary everyday stuff to the situation in the story. Also using the ordinary to give the drama/horror/whatever more punch. I realize out of context some of this is worthless but I don't know how to explain better.
Use props and items over and over rather than introducing new items. If the characters shows up on the first page with a set of steak knives, then bring the steak knives back. You don't have to waste energy explaining new objects. Said another way: "Let objects do a job and not disappear." Be aware of every object you put in.
Be open to trashing your work at any point in the process. Be willing to take a great idea and trash it and know that better ideas will come.
This isn't all. He had tons of great stuff and he reinforced it all week during class.
(L to R) Standing in back: Carol, Carlton and Pritpaul. Next row: Kristin, Owen, Christopher, Maggie, Douglas, Raj, Kira, Shane and An; Front Row: Chuckles, Caren, Eden, Tracy, Jim, Me and Theresa.
Quotes from Chuck:
"I wish I could teach you to be a beautiful writer but I can't. I can teach you how to trick people."
"Look, they catch the sperm back in their penises. It's like Cirque du Soleil."
Chuck's biggest advice: "Don't stop writing. Be stubborn and determined."
Quotes Not From Chuck:
"So you can take that with a huge mountain planet of salt."
"I don't know the crustacean anatomy that well."
"I don't necessarily agree but I don't necessarily disagree."
"It's not necessarily necessary."
"I think your audience for this is people who like creepy baby stories."
"I was waiting for the speculum to be busted out. I don't necessarily know what that is."
"Can you build in redundant systems in case of reader failure?"
"I'm unsure what Dr. Vito was doing. Why would he facilitate the unbirthing unless it was the world's longest plan to get laid?"
"Once a again you have written a powerful story that feels like a kick in the balls. I like this one better, possibly because it was a bit more pleasant kick in the balls."
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 11:57 AM
Monday, August 04, 2008
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GraduationToday I went to the bank after our last class.
The bank teller said, "Did you go to a party? You have glitter in your hair."
"No," I said. "I just graduated from science fiction camp."
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 7:36 PM
Friday, August 01, 2008
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Actual email received from one of my classmates:
Pam,
I really wanted a steak. However, I'm glad An is going with you, because I only now realized the yogurt place will likely have a special sale this particular Thursday evening for its favorite customers. My frequent customer card has almost enough stamps on it to earn a free jumbo-sized oatmeal smoothie, so I might as well get that last stamp so I can use my card before returning to Texas.
Douglas
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 3:52 PM
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
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Fortification
I'm posting this for the benefit of the people who know me well so they can stare agog at the alien creature I've become.
For lunch today I had a cheeseburger, french fries and a shake.
Here's another one for Kira.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 5:42 PM
Saturday, July 26, 2008
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Clarion West Week 5I turned in my week 5 story a day early so I would have extra time for what I said was going to be something different for week 6. But I've been running in place on the damn thing ever since and I'm not sure what to do. If I ditch it, I have to do it now and see if I can pull something together by Monday. Or I can keep grinding away and hope I have a breakthrough. I'm a little panicked right now.
I brought a couple of back-up stories with me but now I don't think either of them are good enough. For my story I've made a major tone shift from what I usually do and I'm wondering if I can keep the story elements but switch back into my more comfortable tone. I don't know. I'm tired and hungry and need a shower so I can't decide right now.
I found new gray hair and I'm at Clarion West, coincidence?
(Kira, I took this photo for you)
I keep going through all my clothes, thinking I'll discover something I haven't worn yet. I thought I brought a big selection but I'm tired of all of it.
I went back through my Clarion West posts and noticed I keep writing the same thing over and over about not sleeping and eating. I'll skip those topics this week except to say that I've finally reached the point where I'm tired enough to fall asleep, to need the alarm and to take naps. Today I took an hour and a half-er that will go in the top 5 of my "Best Naps of My Lifetime So Far."
Sheree kept a pretty easy schedule this week. She talked to us one day about submitting and markets other than speculative fiction. It was nice to have some time to regroup which makes me sad that I haven't gotten anywhere on my story. argh.
Here are a few quotes not just from this week but the whole workshop:
"The attention to the social structure that makes you the Jane Austen of middle-aged small-town American zombie stories."
"So, why does he give her life? Is he just a warlock dicking around with nothing else to do on a Sunday night?"
"Loretta's scalp does a lot of work in this story. It tightens, prickles, and gets cold. I thought she might just need a different shampoo."
"Understand the slush pile--the native habitat of your manuscript." (Cory)
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 5:24 PM
Friday, July 25, 2008
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Clarion West: A little More on Week 4My workout regime has almost vanished and other than walking and yoga once or twice a week, my exercise comes from reading and writing. My sleep has improved about 3%. I've managed to sleep at least 7 hours - 3 nights since I got here. My bedtime is between 12 and 1 and I wake up before 7a. I've woken up before my alarm every single day.
I still love not cooking but I'm at the point where I can't eat one more deli tray sandwich. A couple of times because I didn't want to go out and find food I ended up having peanuts and wine for dinner. That's called an airplane meal. I feel like there's food everywhere but I don't eat as much as I normally do. Yesterday I hoovered a huge plate of avocado curry for lunch but then I never got around to eating a proper dinner and instead had Wheat Thins (Big) and cashews.
I'm still totally in love with all my classmates. Here's what we look like:
Photo: Cory Doctorow
Our class photos are taken on Friday when we're at our maximum in terms of sleep deprivation and brain deadedness. We're even cuter in person.
The very back two are Pritpaul and Carlton. That's Kira taking up two rows and in the blue shirt is Jim and the rest of his row is Christopher, Maggie, Owen, Douglas and Rajan. Then in the black shirt is Caren and rest of her row is An, Carol, Eden and Shane. The next row is Tracy, Theresa, Me and Kristin. And in front is our week #3 instructor Cory. Yes, that's how he dresses. I should link to everyone's URLs but I don't have time right now. I should be writing and reading stories.
In other news I have gone 10 days without doing laundry. I haven't gone 10 days without doing laundry since the 90's. I'd try to keep it up and go 2 full weeks but then I'd have to go buy (or recycle, ew) underwear and that seems stupid when it's so easy to power one single load through so I'll do laundry tomorrow morning.
Can I mention again how much I love the never ending and completely unabashed nerdery? I'm already out as a nerd and live with one but it's amazing to be in a house with so many of people that out nerd me on a regular basis.
Okay, here are a few writing things from Connie:
Only tell what the reader needs to know when they need to know it.
You probably won't know exactly where your story starts until you end it. You need to start at the last possible moment. If you're finding you have a lot of flashbacks, you probably need to move the beginning back.
When you're working on your story you want things to go wrong. Take any situation and apply Murphy's law.
Read Les Miserables and study for how the story is built and look for reversals and obstacles. Skip the boring parts.
The perfect title will mean one thing at the beginning and something different at the end. Or else go for something evocative.
When you're looking for ideas: try to connect things not normally connected. Read stuff no one else is reading. Read tons of non-fiction.
She also told us: "You are never allowed to do a director's cut."
One more quote from the weekend:
Me - "We either need to go home or put some pants on."
Kira - "If those are the choices, we need to reconsider our options."
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 5:45 PM
Monday, July 21, 2008
(2) comments
Clarion West Week #4
Wow. I can't believe I've been here a month.
Another great week. Connie Willis is awesome. I have 10 trillion things to do today so I don't have time for a long-winded post. Perhaps 1 day next week.
All of a sudden its getting too late for all the things I planned on doing like visit friends and try certain restaurants. Oh well. I'll be in Seattle again.
A couple of quick Connie advice items:
If you're going to do public appearances always be prepared for wardrobe malfunctions.
Never send your classmates clippings of their bad reviews in your local paper.
There were some great quotes this week but I don't have them handy so I'll give two of mine:
"You've got an alien in a thong and a talking woodchuck. It didn't bother me that Dylan Thomas was there."
"He seemed awfully easy going for an overlord."
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 8:25 AM
Saturday, July 19, 2008
(2) comments
Halftime
I'm frittering away my few moments of free time this week, writing this post. I hope I don't regret it later.
Last weekend Bob went to see Stevie Wonder in Auburn and I drove down to meet him on Saturday and we hung out for about 24 hours.
I can't explain how strange it was to be with him again for the first 1/2 hour. This workshop is such a full immersion meal deal that it's like a I'm in a completely different life. So going leaving this and seeing Bob felt surreal at first.
This doesn't mean I wasn't very happy to see him.
Bob's super power is finding weird motels and this was no exception. It was sort-of in a Lowe's parking lot. We had a view of pallets of bark-dust from our window. It was clean, comfortable and totally low end. The continental breakfast was a basket of muffins on the check-in counter. But the staff was very nice and the location decent so it worked out fine.
We had a big lunch. It seems like we eat all the time at the workshop but at the same time I don't think I'm eating as much as I usually do and I was super hungry.
We went to Emerald Downs (we've never been to the horse races before) and we had a blast. It's funny to me when I'm in situations where I don't know what I'm doing, sometimes I'm very timid and sometimes I don't care. This was an I don't care. We went to the program booth and said, "We need a program," and they said, "Which one?" and we said: "We don't know. We're new." And we did that all afternoon. "How do I place a bet?" "What's a superfecta?" and "When do I get to ride?"
I picked horses purely by their name or how pretty I thought they were. I did not come out ahead. I also didn't wear sunscreen and got nice pink shoulders.
Later we went to dinner. Bob had found a Greek/Italian place but when he phoned, the message said they were on vacation. We did a drive-by anyway, just-in-case, and they were open and he practically did back flips.
After dinner we did a quick drive around Muckleshoot, the view of Rainier was incredible. We stopped in at the casino. I have been in at least 20 Indian casinos so I didn't think I could be surprised but this place blew my mind. It was as big as Texas and went on and on with machines and tables and people and restaurants and a bar with a band so horrific they were awesome.
Fun time. I will also report that I slept 7.5 hours my longest night of sleep since I left home. Then I returned home Sunday by Noon and worked on my story until 1:30am. I had a hard time with my story for this week and was tempted to bag it and not turn anything. My deadline is 9pm on Monday and I worked all afternoon and by 7pm I knew it was at least decent enough that I wouldn't be humiliated. I should explain that I hold myself to high standards. My classmates will speak out on what's not working but their feedback is very kind.
Here's a parting moment with Bob:
B: D'oh!
Me: Do you need my help?
B: I put the cap to my butt creme on wrong
Me: I love being married to an old guy.
B: It's only going to get funnier.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 3:53 PM
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
(1) comments
Halfway (Clarion West Week #3)This was a gnarly week. It reminded me of being at home. Every time I thought I'd have a couple of hours to write, something else ended up taking longer than expected or something unexpected ate up the time. I'm frazzled about getting my story done for next week (due: Mon 9pm). The story I'm working is not coming together very well and my protagonist is still foggy. I wish I had more time to sort it out.
I still love my classmates and being here but I'm still not sleeping more than 5 or 6 hours a night. I find it hard to believe that I am still functioning and reasonably good humored for me. As I write this I'm with Bob and sleeping at a motel, here's hoping for a good night.
Cory did lectures every day that were for the most part short and everything he said was totally useful. I've picked out a few highlights.
He said almost the same thing that Mary said which basically is: you can't judge the quality of your work by the way you feel about it when you're doing it. If you develop a habit of writing every day, no matter how you feel, you will find when you look back that you can't really tell which days were good and which were bad.
I think this is something that I've sensed on my own but it would have been nice to learn this 20 years ago.
Cory recommended getting rid of any ceremonial writing habits you need: e.g. the perfect music, a clean house, smoking or drinking connected to writing. You need to be able to do your work anywhere, anytime.
He also talked about ideas and how it's all stuff you pull out of everyday life and how often the idea that you start with is nothing like what you end up with. The idea is what gets you started. This was true for the story I turned in this week. I had a vision of what I wanted to do and I reset a couple of times but the story I ended up with had very few of the elements that I had envisioned with the original idea. The story involves time travel and Indian bingo, if you're wondering.
Someone asked him what to do if you're halfway through your story and you hate it. Here's another one to embroider on a pillow: "In my experience there is no story that you don't hate halfway through."
Here are a couple of hacks:
When you end for the day, finish mid-sentence knowing exactly where you want to go. Those several words you need to finish will help lead you to the next. It's called leaving yourself a hint.
The first few paragraphs of a story are generally throat clearing and there's no problem with that but you need to find the real spot where the story begins. This is exactly what happened to me last week. I was testing out a couple of ideas for next week's story and I wrote about 800 words of each and thought they were both doodoo. But later I realized that the next scene in one of the ideas, was where the story should start and I'm ready to dive back in.
We've had some good advice from Cory and other sources about not getting bogged down in research. They suggest making a notation to check on something later and keep writing so you sustain the energy of the story. This is good for me because I let myself get distracted by research.
I had a spectacular adventure last weekend. Someone organized a night out for sushi last weekend and I don't dislike sushi but the idea wasn't singing to me. I found out that only one of my classmates had also opted out of sushi and I suggested we go find a steak. He thought that was a fantastic idea.
After some research I decided we should go to El Gaucho which is a steakhouse for rich people or people with expense accounts (as if those two aren't the same). I thought we should have an adventure and we did. Mink Lined Booth. I am not kidding you. I rubbed against it for the entire meal. I had a filet mignon and I ate every bit and didn't wuss out at my normal half portion. (Some might laugh at this because it was the smallest steak on the menu but whatever.) The entire evening was a highlight but I'll mention one other part which was when I was looking for the restroom and this hot waiter guy came over and offered me his arm and escorted me to the ladies' room. Alas, the special service ended there.
***
Here's a tidbit about the thefts. Shortly after we discovered that laptops, and Paul lost a bag of clothes, were missing a police officer came and nothing like a room full of writers to explain what happened. "There's a chair in my room, a big one, beige and there's a bureau next to it and some of my clothes were on the chair and papers and books on the bureau." It went on like this, lots of concrete details that might be splendid in story writing but completely irrelevant to how the criminal got into the house and stole people's stuff.
Two final items
1 - I am using a word processing program called Pages by Apple and I think it sucks ass. I'm not sure if it's because I'm unfamiliar with it so if I just want to write a footnote I have to spend 10 minutes cycling through menus or that it genuinely sucks ass but I emailed myself some back up files to my gmail account and then later downloaded one to see how it looked and I couldn't open it. I guess I have to export it into a file format that I can later open? I'm no rocket scientist and bad at things like software but if this understanding of how it works is correct, I'd like to say to Apple: Frack you.
2 - I did a quick vanity check of my stats and one of the phrases in a search engine that found me is: "Pam's Butt Stinks."
***
Quotes:
"That last [bit] is just mustache twirling."
"Proof of God, great. What about my problems?"
"I needed the bingo to do something else."
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 10:23 PM
Saturday, July 12, 2008
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Preemptive Nostalgia (Clarion West Week #2)I already miss not being here. Maybe in another two weeks I'll be writing here that I want to kill these people but at this point, I never want to leave.
I never would have guessed that I'd feel this way.
This week our instructor was Mary Rosenblum who was completely awesome a great teacher and really encouraging and fun to hang out with.
Then something bad happened to bring a sour end to our time with her. The house was broken into while we were in class yesterday and four student laptops were stolen. There is more information here and here.
(Update on thefts: BoingBoing knows more than I do. Looks like they've already raised enough money for new laptops. What a great community.)
That put a weird spin on the rest of the day and now everyone is walking around with their laptop bag slung around their neck. As you can imagine, the object of the laptop isn't as traumatizing as what was inside. Especially at a writer's workshop.
I am settling in a lot better although my sleep is still not the same as at home. I had assumed any sleep deprivation would be from stress of too many things to do. And although there is an element of that, mostly my body doesn't sleep for 8 hours. No matter how late I stay up (my bedtime is between 11 and midnight) I wake up between 5a and 6a. I did take a couple very quick of naps this week. But mostly I feel fine with that much sleep. It seems like lots of people are having trouble sleeping.
I like the process of getting to know a new place. Even though I've been to Seattle a bunch of times it's always for a specific purpose like Bumbershoot or soccer game. And Bob does all the driving so I don't feel like I really know Seattle.
But since we've been here I've walked around the University district and I've been driving around to parties (there's a party every week associated with the workshop) so I'm feeling a bit less anxiety about getting around here. As soon as I finish this I'm going to Target to buy a bunch of random stuff but most importantly, I'm buying a cheap electric tea kettle.
There's a hot water spigot on the coffee machine that pumps out water that wouldn't pass for hot in any jurisdiction. It's one of those things that at first I barely noticed and then became mildly annoying and at this point is ruining my morning. I want my tea hot.
Also my eyeballs feel like they're on fire after a day on the keyboard so I'm going to get some eye drops. I brought some but the first time I used them I was squeezing bubbles out of the tiny bottle which did nothing to relieve the burning.
I didn't say anything about writing and I don't feel like going over my notes right now. The emphasis this week was characterization and working on characterizing using dialogue and actions. For me part of it is skill and part of it is laziness. It's so much easier to tell what your character is about. Especially when you're cranking out a first draft.
I'm kind of surprised how fast I can write if I want to. Week #1 we had an assignment to turn in an outline and a lot of people did their first story from that. But after we'd discussed my outline I hated the idea and ditched it so I had to come up with a completely new idea and write it in only a couple of days. At first I was panicked and flopped over my notebook weeping. I brough a huge idea folder and I flipped through that until something looked interesting.
Now I've had more time to think about my outline idea and that's what I'm writing today.
I love that moment when you have no idea what you're doing and then all the little gears and alarms synch up and you think: "Oh, this is what's going on here" and you starting cranking it out.
This week Christopher convinced a few of us to check out the library on campus which is like a giant cathedral and a very cool space to be in. He was referring to it as Hogwarts. I worked over there one afternoon and think I'll put it into my rotation.
The weekdays are so busy there's barely enough time to do everything. I had a bottle of wine and I kept thinking I'd open it as a reward for all my hard work. But then my hard work would go until midnight and it would seem pointless to open it at that point. Yes world: there is a reality in which I can find it too busy for an adult beverage. I'm having all sorts of personal insights here. I made up for it last night.
Updated:
Here's a few quotes from the week:
Mary: "The stuff that your write when you feel like crap is almost as good as the stuff that you write when you feel good. Keep writing when you feel like crap."
Not Mary:
"That would go over like a pregnant pole vaulter."
"If I was a character on Lost it would have only lasted 3 episodes because I would have sat that guy Ben down and said 'what the fuck is going on here?'"
"Maybe the centaur was a size queen."
"River was way hotter than Inara."
"I hated the main character. I wouldn't let this guy clean the city's latrines."
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 9:08 AM
Saturday, July 05, 2008
(3) comments
Science Fiction Camp
Just a quick note to say:
(a) Bummer! on the EuroCup final. Yeah, sure. Spain is really cute but I wanted my German boys to win.
(b) My bedtime at science fiction camp is getting later by the minute. Me, the 9pm sharp girl is now thinking, 11p is my bedtime except tonight I'm staying up until 12.
Is there an award for this?
(6 hours of sleep last night and an honest-to-goodness catnap this afternoon after soccer. Yay, me.)
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 11:45 PM
Sunday, June 29, 2008
(2) comments
Cognitive Load (Clarion West Week #1)I decided this morning that my super power is insomnia and that it's a good power because otherwise I am going to go insane. I didn't sleep well the night before I got here and I've been here 8 nights and the best night I got was 7 hours still waking up twice. One night I got 6. Otherwise it's 4 or less and I am an 8-9 hour a night kind of girl.
Last night I didn't go to bed until 1am. On purpose! 3:30a I was still curled up in the dark wondering why my body has turned on me in this way. Then I woke up at 7a.
I'm not sure what's going on. I figured it was being in a new place and the noise and and the constant stimulation but last night I was so tired I couldn't see straight so I suspect I am broken OR I have a new super power.
But everything this week has been filtered through this crushing tiredness and I'll admit to a couple of meltdowns (in private) that I'm sure had more to do with lack of sleep than anything else.
On the drive up I got behind this ancient hunk of junk that I figured was filled with hippies and garden-burgers and turns out it's an official state vehicle for parks and rec. See the Tacoma Dome in the background? I should add that I have the cheapo camera and no Photoshop on this machine so my photos are lamer than usual.
The whole sleep issue aside, everything is great and I am in love with all of my classmates. They're total brainiacsI have no idea what they're talking about half the time but it's like this endless conversation that you'd never have in your regular life that involves vampire pirates and inter-species romance and zombie godzillas on space ships and it's really fabulous.
Our instructor this week was Paul Park and I've been going through my notes and I don't think I'll get too into what we learned because it'll just end up sounding like regurgitated writing book and it was way more than that. But what I will say is that the approach was to break things down and talk about the bits that make up a story e.g. characterization and setting.
Talking about my submission story and taking a look at it now, I can see how I made a lot of decisions randomly rather than having a purpose to my choices. I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all the information and how would I ever remember to apply these things in writing stories.
But like everything in life, I started to think of it like yoga. How many classes I took and books I read and heard about little precisions in practice like extend down through the outer edge of your back foot in triangle pose and for years I had no idea what that meant or how that would even be possible, but I set my intention to do this and then one day I got it and now I do this without even thinking about it.
Here are a couple of Paul Park quotes:
"The characters are always right."
"Epiphany really bites as a strategy because when do these things really happen?"
RE: the lesson in Romeo and Juliet "Don't be in such a hurry, especially if you're a moron."
This is the window where I look out from my desk.
From my desk I can see the gate at the back of the house and the parking area and a huge stretch of the back alley so I can watch everyone come and go and the fraternity people, many in impossibly nice cars, and the tiny Asian man and woman who come through the alley in the morning and get the aluminum cans from the trash bins. They had quite a haul this morning.
I'm jumping around here. I've done yoga workshops with Bob and Ki in Portland and I was thrilled to find that their yoga center is a 10 minute walk from here. I went to a class last weekend and it was exactly what I needed and I even bought a class card and plan to go back. It's a traditional Hatha based class and very much like the style from my first teacher, Holiday.
Meanwhile, I found 8 Limbs Yoga online and wanted to try that as well in the hopes of keeping in shape for my home class. I was my usual half-wit self and somehow got the impression I could walk there from here and then set out on what quickly became an epic hike that involved giant hills. When I saw the time I thought I might not make it so I started running uphill until I finally clued in that only a idiot would try to walk to this yoga class from where I'm staying.
During this adventure I passed another yoga studio so I went back down the hill and checked the schedule and a class was just starting and it was a style I was familiar with so I achieved my goal of getting more exercise and I got my yoga.
This is the view from my other window.
I bet people in Arizona are laughing right now because there is a "severe weather" warning this weekend because it is supposed to hit 90 degrees here. Yeah, yeah, I know it is severely hot for up here. I might have to go sleep (or lie awake) in the scary basement if it's too gnarly in my room.
I've got a story to write this weekend. I'd like to get a first draft done today so I can watch the soccer game tomorrow (Germany v. Spain - I can't wait) guilt-free. Today is our only day without any activities. Already tomorrow we start with a new instructor. It's strange but not a bad strange but this is such a different rhythm of life class, writing, hanging out talking about aliens. I like it but I wish I could sleep.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 12:04 PM
Saturday, June 28, 2008
(1) comments
Room 5
There's a little bit of a sleeping problem going on. It is noisy outside but I don't think it is just that. I think it is also strange bed and no Bob and running around at activities until late at night without any wind-down time. There's also a cough issue. I bought an over-the-counter remedy which I'm hoping will help.
Time for me to go downstairs. Things are getting started.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 3:56 PM
Sunday, June 22, 2008
(5) comments
I Made It Here
My room has one bed, 2 closets and 5 bureaus. I still haven't figured out where the bathroom is. Off to have adventures.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 7:06 PM
Friday, June 20, 2008
(2) comments
And Boy Are My Arms Tired
I can't believe I was worried about getting enough exercise today. I took a break from my preparations to have a yoga practice.
I ended up doing about 6 weeks worth of yardwork in 2 and a half hours. Our yard won't look as good the entire year.
I'm not packed but I have piles of things everywhere. My classmates are going to laugh at me when they see how much crap I'm bringing. We might need 12 colors of Sharpie.
RE: the photo
A couple of years ago my camera went dotty and I began calling it the special effects camera. I got it out a couple of months ago to see if anything had improved and not really.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 7:34 PM
Sunday, June 15, 2008
(0) comments
Morrison Bridge Parking with Rose Festival
This is where I park on Mondays for the screaming deal of $9.25.
My level of wigging has advanced from yellow to orange. If I had more time I would make a CW wigging-threat advisory chart. I leave for Seattle on June 20. I have 6 more days in the office, two days of work-related travel and 3 days at home. For the three days at home I have one appointment and two get-togethers.
Otherwise I have to figure out packing and run errands. I haven't figured out what I'm going to do for bedding yet. Good thing I talked Bob into getting rid of that extra bedding that was just sitting around when I cleaned out the linen cupboard last November.
I said to someone that I had no idea how much shampoo one should pack for 6 weeks and he very intelligently pointed out that they have stores there. This morning I woke up at 4am thinking about the things I need to take care of before I leave. This is good practice because I have to get up a 4am tomorrow and take a 6am flight to Boise. I think any time the alarm goes of before 5am is just wrong.
I keep telling myself that the world isn't going to end if some of this stuff doesn't happen. But still, the list clicks away in my head.
Yesterday's game between Germany and Poland was a good one. I love the German team. Can you even look at a picture of Michael Ballack without wanting to run your fingers through his hair? Even though I want to see Spain play, I'm resisting the urge to tape games this week. Hopefully I can cram in a couple next weekend between episodes of wigging.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 8:06 AM
Monday, June 09, 2008
(2) comments
ProcessI told the writers group I would give them a draft of my story by last night, no matter what, so they'd have enough time to review before our meeting Saturday. I'm not a perfectionist but I don't like to throw something out there if I feel it isn't ready. It was a good lesson in how hard I can push myself when motivated. The story is thin in spots but it has a beginning, a middle and an end and I stuck to my self-imposed deadline.
I very rarely write after work, especially days like yesterday which was very busy and research intensive. I was tired and fuzzy headed but as soon as I got home I went to the computer and hammered away. Later I did my taxes on my dinner break. It's nice when you can surprise yourself.
I often hear writers talk about having a daily word goal. I've even seen widgets on blogs for tracking word counts.
Word counting, in terms of a daily goal, doesn't work for me since I have very little trouble writing words. That can't be a big surprise if you're here. The 13th of this month is my 12 year anniversary of starting my website and for the most part it's all original words.
The discipline for me is sticking with it until the story and characters work and sometimes that means writing in circles for a little while. (Or longer.)
A typical writing cycle for me goes: get new idea, rabid excitement, research and tons of writing, get stuck, dread the writing chair, avoid writing, hate myself for avoiding it, despair, force myself to go back to it, find what interested me in the first place, finish story.
For the record, there's a bale of stuff in my files that's still waiting for the part that comes after "despair."
Some writers talk about outlining first and others talk about just sitting down and writing it and see what comes out. I do both. I write a bunch and then sit back and look at what I'm doing and where I'm going and try to map things out a bit and then jump back in and write some more.
The story I finished this week is one where I knew how I wanted it to end but wasn't sure how I was going to get there and who I was going to take with me. Last Friday I worked all day especially on the protagonist. But later as I was thinking about the story, I realized that this wasn't the right protagonist for this story.
Saturday I scrapped more than half of what I already had and started all over with a new take on my protagonist and worked with that until last night when I got to the end.
The story before this one I had a title I really liked but no idea what was going to happen. At first the story that came out didn't fit the title. Also I had intended to use it for my Clarion West submission so I was trying to fit it into a specific length. In the end, I made it fit the title and keeping it shorter eliminated a stupid side part that wasn't working so I guess the advice is: find what works best for you and trust your instincts.
Labels: "Clarion West"
posted by Pamela at 7:57 AM
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
(3) comments
Clarion WestI got the call on Sunday night. I have been accepted in the Clarion West Workshop. Don't let my calm tone fool you. This is a BFD. For the second time in 6 months I ran into the basement and did these pogo-ing jumping jacks while shouting, "you'll never guess what just happened" at my poor bewildered spouse.
I get to spend 6 weeks in Seattle doing workshops and writing and hanging out with writers. No cooking. No cleaning. No commuting. And no lawyers.
I never mentioned applying to it here. I guess that's a great indicator of my confidence. I had pretty much talked myself out of it thinking that I would really be relieved to find I didn't get in. There's a big change in my professional life coming up that I also haven't mentioned yet here but the gist is I'll be leaving the firm at the end of September and working fulltime for a tribal client. I'm sure I'll be wringing my hands about it until then but I'll spare you for now.
I was thrilled with the news and bouncing off the walls for the rest of the night. That night I dreamt I was at the workshop and I only had one page to turn in for my story. It's going to be awesome.
There's a good summary of my writing life and what led up to this here. After Wordstock (the first time I did the pogo dance) I wanted to keep moving forward so I decided to apply to Clarion West. I didn't know if I could get the time off or how I could make it work but I figured I'd worry about that later.
The firm is fine with it, if not very supportive and Bob and I are working out the rest of it.
I know this is just one summer of my life but here are the two tragedies.
#1 My garden. I don't see how I can put in a garden and then be gone for 6 weeks. I'm sure Bob could keep it alive but he hates tomatoes so it seems like a lot to ask for him to take care of it. I'll probably put some stuff in anyway and see what happens. Of course I'm going to plant pumpkins.
#2 No extended Orleans trip this summer with all the family and kids and the river and corn and tomatoes and Indian Rocks. I'll have time for a quick weekend trip but can't see taking off 6 weeks at the beginning of the summer and then expecting another week at the end.
I'm not complaining. This is going to be a great summer.
We're going to Seattle this weekend as our super-abbreviated spring break trip (long story omitted) and I told Bob this is the last weekend for effing around until August. I'm all business until this workshop is over.
Labels: "Clarion West"