Category Archives: Clarion West

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 brainiacs—I 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.

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.

My room has one bed, 2 closets and 5 bureaus. I still haven’t figured out where the bathroom is. Off to have adventures.

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.

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.

I 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.

I 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.