[Clarion West 2k1, week 6: the home stretch...]

Wednesday. Woke up about an hour earlier than usual, and so I spent the extra time thinking about what story I'd write this week. Story idea #1 finally worked it's way into my consciousness, and I greeted the day with renewed confidence.

Went to class. We critiqued the five stories, and then Jack talked to us a bit about comedy. Because we had a particularly good example of an opening page in this batch of stories, we also talked about effective openings of stories.

Jack also added a fourth story type to the three Bradley had written on the board ("Boy meets girl," "The little tailor," and "The man who learned better."): "What goes around comes around." This is the revenge story, and doesn't often fit into the three other categories.

For lunch, a bunch of us went to the thai food restaurant that we've been haunting quite a bit. We also plotted to head out for dinner that evening, since this would likely be our last chance to all dine together as a group.

After lunch, I came back to the dorms and started writing. Story idea #1 wasn't working for me at all. Happily, a derivative -- which I shall call Story Idea #2 -- soon presented itself, and I began typing. By the time we headed off for dinner, I'd written over 700 words of what I'd intended to be a 1000 word short-short.

Then, we went for dinner. It was a fiasco. Almost the entire group trekked down to McCormick's Fish House and Bar at 722 Fourth Avenue downtown. We chose this place because it was closer than their location on First Avenue, they were known to have some vegetarian and vegan options, and others among our party had eaten there and liked it.

Our experience of this restaurant was not good. They placed us at a series of tables rather than all together (so, why go as such a large group if we have to eat separately?), the service was slow, the vegetarian and vegan options were meager, the three of us who ordered steak ordered medium rare but received medium well or well done, and the food was both lame *and* expensive, and they wouldn't allow us to break up the check by tables since we were, in their eyes, one group.

I've been told that the one on First Avenue is better, but I'm in no hurry to try it. It's possible that this place is good under other circumstances. But, I don't reckon I'll find out. Attention all you future Clarionites: don't bother bringing a large group to this restaurant.

We returned to the dorm, and I completed my story, which turned in at 1,500 words. On the longish side for a short-short, but still technically part of the range. Emily was kind enough to read it over (several of us have found that there is a benefit to having a primary reader to catch obvious stuff before submitting to the group; Emily and Karen have been wonderful about helping me out in that capacity), and then I was done with my final writing assignment for Clarion West 2001.

It wasn't even midnight, yet. :-)

Emily and Avi and I had milk and cookies in my room for the last time, here. With all of us leaving in a couple days, it wasn't likely that any of us would be buying more milk....