[Clarion West 2k1, week 5: into the final third of the program...]

Monday. Woke up having *again* gotten seven hours of sleep. Four nights in a row of a decent amount of sleep. And, yet, I found it harder to wake up on this day than on the previous days. Go figure.

Class was excellent. I laughed. I cried. It was better than Cats. And, I'm not posting my notes, other than to repeat Ellen's advice that if you want to see dialog done well, check out any novel by Elmore Leonard.

We all fended for ourselves for lunch and most of us dove right into the day's reading and critiquing afterward. Sean prepared an excellent beef stew for dinner and invited Ellen to come up and join us, which she did. Fine conversation and fine food; what better way to spend an evening?

Conversation topics included body piercing and tattoos. What would happen if you accidentally swallowed the metal orb of your tongue piercing? Ewwwwwww.

I had managed to finish my reading and critiquing by then -- the reading load was lighter than usual -- and spent most of the evening agonizing over developing a story idea for my assignment this week. Over the dinner table, it was suggested that I write a horror story featuring a florist (straight), a "company man," and a horse. Possibly along with a monster truck named Grave Digger. In Cairo. The horse should be alive at the beginning and the ending of the story, I was told, but dead at some point in the middle.

As difficult as it was for me, I decided to pass on this lovely suggestion. I spent some time chatting with a couple other friends here who had missed the dinner conversation, and generated a couple of other possible topic ideas. But, those didn't quite sit right with me, either, even though the general topics are compelling. So, I hopped into my car and went for a drive. Driving has often helped me to "get" ideas, although I have no idea why. By the time I arrived in Redmond (whereupon I bought Paulette some flowers and gave them to her before driving back), I had the story idea I'd been looking for.

Usually, I don't get my titles until I'm pretty far into writing the story, but this one already has a title. "Let There Be Life."

Arrived back at the dorms and typed up my journal entries for these last few days. Now it's time to go to bed. I'm looking at about six hours of sleep. That's not so bad....