[Clarion West 2K1, the saga continues]

Sunday. I manage to critique a story. Then a few of us go for a walk to Dick's Burgers for our cholesterol injection. A few phone calls, and then a few of us head to Archie McPhee's for some shopping. Archie McPhee's is a cool novelty shop. We get back just in time for gettin' ready for our big group dinner thing. We have our weekly meeting to kick off the week, and then it's time to actually begin work for real.

So, yeah, I've been goofing off again for most of the weekend. :-P

Our instructor this week is Nalo Hopkinson. She told us that we should get into the practice of reading our material out loud (she is going to ask us to read our first pages aloud in class) so as to enable us to get the cadence right on the page. She also talked to us about the importance of a counter-story within our fiction... even our short stories.

During our conversation over dinner, we also talked about the business side of being a writer. This is a topic she says that we'll be getting back to as the week progresses. It also turns out that she and Kelly Link were both attendees at Clarion East together in 1995; Kelly taught at East this year. We were told today that this is the shortest turn around from Clarion student to Clarion instructor to date.

Dinner itself was fantastic. Karen prepared a curry-based chicken dish with tomatoes and peppers. Kiini prepared collared greens (is that how you spell it?) while Ibi produced some fantastic vegetable dishes. I have volunteered to spearhead next Sunday's meal with a meatasaurus's delight while I'll be enlisting help for dishes to feed our vegan contingent.

Once the group meeting and dinner were completed, I split my time between doing the crit work I had left to do and fraternizing with my fellow students. As I've said before, I'll say again: this is a great bunch of writers and people. I haven't been spending as much time with some as I have with others; this has largely been a function of eating habits (insofar as the meat-eaters are not often co-preparing dishes with the vegetarians and vegans) and of convenience (early risers and night owls often socialize more among their own groups). I'm pleased to have spent some time tonight hanging out with quite a few members of the group with whom I normally don't get to spend as much time as I'd like.

My big Clarion goal for tomorrow, in addition to my usual crit work, is to come up with a story idea for the week. I'd rather not wait until the last minute this time.

Thassall for now. More later, potater.

PS: dig that shift from present tense to past tense right after the first paragraph. Yikes.

PPS: Happy Canada Day, eh? Nalo lives in Toronto (across the lake from Buffalo, where I allegedly grew up), and several of our Clarionites hail from north of the border. One actually posted the first few lines from the Canadian national anthem on her message board, but the other Canadians in the group observed the day with typical Canadian aloofness.