[note: the date for this entry is incorrect; the geeklog file was hosed last night and fixing it this afternoon included reposting this particular entry, which should be date stamped sometime late on Sunday, 6/18/01.]

A bunch of us (12 of the 17 in our class) spent the late morning walking down to the International District (which, coincidentally enough, is where I work when I'm not on leave for a writing program...) to pick up some specialty foods. Several members of our class like to cook with particular ingredients that are more commonly found outside of the traditional American supermarket.

Afterward, we toured Elliot Bay Books (where the Tuesday night readings will be held) just a few blocks away, and then the Eastern edge of the Pioneer Square area. At each stop in our little tour, one or two members of our group would peel off and head back to the dorms. By the time we ended up at an Indian cuisine restaurant just past Yessler, we were down to seven. A perfect-sized group for inclusive conversation. (When the larger group had dinner the night before, it naturally became a collection of smaller sets engaged in conversation...)

Topics included: teaching languages & accents, and what's the worst movie ever made (there was no agreement on this one. One person's Citizen Kane was another person's Eraserhead). Then, we walked up the James Street hill to return directly to the dorm.

Now, at this point, I should mention that 1) I recently bought new sneakers, 2) we'd done so much walking the previous day that my feet had started screaming in agony the night before, 3) I'm a fat old man who is waaaaay out of shape. In short, I very much needed this long walk today, including the bit taking us up that hill, and it was also... a painful exercise. D'oh!

A while later, several of us made a Costco run. Most of us were there for more foods in bulk, and I picked up a couple of new reference books plus some shorts and other clothes for the nicer weather... and so as to postpone my next laundry day.

We paid our bills for the course and then had our first official class meeting, followed by our introduction to Octavia Butler, the first week instructor. She gave us three assignments:

1) Long term -- submit one of the stories we write for this year's Clarion West to be considered for publication.

2) This week -- explore an emotional event that was significant in our lives, and then take that raw emotion and put it into the story we turn in for this week.

3) Tomorrow morning -- write a one-sentence synopsis of a project we are working on, taking care to state something about character, conflict, and resolution.

I signed up to turn in a story on Thursday morning (so that it will be critiqued Friday). I plan to do the one-sentence exercise both for the novel I'm currently writing and for the short story I hope to write this week.

As for my other assignment -- critique the three submission pieces we were sent a week ago -- I've finished two and now have the third to go.

Octavia had a few words of wisdom for us as we went around the room making introductions. I'll repeat two interesting tidbits here: first, it helps to have an idea how you intend to end your piece before you begin writing it. Even if you end it differently, at least you are working toward a definite end. Pam Goodfellow, who taught the UW Commercial Fiction Writing program, often gave this same advice... and, it never hurts to hear good advice more than once.

Second, if you can manage to not feel above such things as self-help or motivational tapes, there are worse ways to get yourself into a good frame of mind before sitting down to approach the blank piece of paper.

Keep in mind that what I've written above is my take on what she said, and is not a transcript of what she said. Others may have taken away a different interpretation of her points.

I must confess that I feel a bit silly just putting up a blow-by-blow description of the days events, rather than the observations and arguments I'm prone to writing in my journal (both off-line and on-). That, itself, may be an essay for another day: the difference between transcribing and interpreting events. But, that will have to wait, as I must now return to my homework. Ack!

I'm looking at about four hours sleep tonight, if I get things done in a timely fashion.