[Clarion West 2K1 week 1: last day]

Managed to get about 7 hours of sleep last night, and I'm not showing any signs of sleep deprivation from events earlier in the week. Yee-haw.

...unless you count the fact that I went to take my shower this morning and forgot to bring my room key with me.

We occupy the top floor of the Campion dormitory, where we enjoy an amazing view of downtown Seattle, the Cascade mountains, the Olympics, and of course Mt. Rainier to the south and Mt. Baker to the north. Each room is intended as a double (read: only big enough for one person, but really intended for two) for the students at Seattle University. My room has two beds, two closets, two desks, a sink and a very cool view. It also, like all of the other rooms on this floor, has a door that is always locked.

So, I get back to my room from the showers this morning only to find that I'd forgotten to bring the key that would let me enter. There's a phone down the hall that must have been installed for just such situations; a quick call to public safety and then I only had to wait ten minutes for the nice man to come let me into my room. I felt a little sheepish standing around in my bathrobe while others were getting dressed and heading out (even though one of my fellows was kind enough to offer me a place to hang out while I waited), but thems the wages of my crime.

I found out later in the day that I'm not the first of us to run into this problem. One has had to call to be let into his room three times already. We've been here almost a week.

Anyway, it was a great way to start the day. Then, it was off to our last class with Octavia. We had four stories and lots of ground to cover after class, so we dove right into the critiques. Mine was the last one, and this was my first time on the hot seat at Clarion.

Wow!

I received some incredible feedback on what worked and what didn't, and I'm convinced (rightly or wrongly) both that there is a lot of work to do and that this piece *can* nonetheless be salvaged. I had gone over the top with the story to build the tension, and the class largely agreed on which parts I might trim to hit a more appropriate note. I'll also have to add a few minor scenes to clear up a couple of confusing points.

While the critique was mostly a list of things that didn't work for people, I found the feedback to be wildly constructive and oddly reassuring.

After critique was over, we all posed for a picture in front of the "french fries" sculpture at the class building and then the entire class took Octavia to lunch at the Ethiopian restaurant that many of us had been to last Saturday. This time, we had the whole gang: all seventeen students plus the instructor. After a fine meal, we returned to the dorm and celebrated Octavia's and a classmate's birthday with cake and presents. We had two cakes, one vegan and one made with real ingredients. (Allow me to mention that I had a bite of the vegan cake and it was actually quite good, much to my surprise.)

In my conference with Octavia that afternoon, she gave me a new way of looking at the novel I'm working on, and we went over a few things about my short story that, with some work, might make it ready for submission to Analog.

The day wrapped up with a party north of the city where we had the chance to meet with past Clarionites and other writers. All but one of us were able to make it. (I keep mentioning the group solidarity thing for reasons which I will get to in a future post.)

All in all, it was a satisfying conclusion to a great first week at Clarion West. Tomorrow (Saturday) is our day off before we meet Bradley Denton on Sunday. I'm anticipating a quick visit to Redmond, a tour of the Seattle "Underground", and other touristy activities tomorrow.

Gotta say, I'm very much enjoying my experience here so far.