All of my wriggling and trying to say it didn’t get much across, but Tinatsu went ahead and made a new blog and then said it better than I thought possible. For anyone wondering how Clarion West was, go read that post.

Week 6 was a little different. I felt odd, because I had no project-on-the-go. Prior to week 6, I’d planned on working on a new story throughout week 6, but once the last week arrived, and I looked back on what I had already written, I decided I’d done enough, and that it would be all I could do to produce crits and read others’ work and not get sick. Well, I got sick anyway, but it’s cleared up now. I saw a baseball game, as well, with a number of classmates (and stepped on a piece of glass that …

Stats first: I produced a lot of work at Clarion West. People were often joking about it, but the funny thing is, it’s really all about opportunity. During semesters, I haven’t necessarily produced anything like the wordcounts I pumped out during the workshop. There’s something about not having anything else to do that’s more pressing than writing that just gets you going, if you know what I mean. Anyway, since others are posting their stats (here, here, and here), I present my Clarion West stats: Week 1: 5,800 words of exercises with Paul Park Week 2: 7,200 words Week 3: …

Week 5 was great. We’re staring to get tired out, but it’s not a fatal kind of tired. Ellen’s feedback was very interesting, sometimes surprising and sometimes not. I think it’s a sign that our class is still doing pretty well with crits that she often agreed with the bulk of ideas that were floating around; I think it’s interesting that she also often advised us to ignore the more radical advice and be careful to preserve the heart of the story for any given work. She was great in one-on-ones; unflinchingly honest about what she saw in my work, …

A man not so very long gone might have called them angelheaded, every one of them radiant thieves and pickpockets of the dead or almost-alive. They have been closed up in little rooms, singing songs without guitars, but they come down, and sit together laughing for a little while, and sing of stars and nights and long-gone men with misplaced bodies, and the evening begins to blossom into itself all around them. Do they know that this time, too, will be over soon?

A great, busy, hard-driving week. We had Ian MacLeod in from UK and he focused on character and how things can flow from that. Character connects to plot and setting and setting connects to character and plot and plot connects to character and setting, yes, but what are the mechanics of character? What are the mechanics of creating a plot and then choosing a character who fits into it? What are the mechanics of working with settings to frame or give birth to characters and plots? How do we generate characters? Why do they have the quirks they do? How …

It was an excellent, amazing week. Maureen McHugh is rock’n’roll. She said a lot of very great, very simple but not necessarily straightforward things… or rather, straightforward things I’ve never heard before, and somehow already heard before at the same time. She is bristlingly intelligent, wonderfully friendly. I some really good advice one-on-one, and lots of great thoughts in critique sessions. Maureen did some wonderful exercises with us, including one which was directly useful to me in writing the story I handed in on Wednesday night. It was due tonight (Sunday, a long time later) but I drafted it — …

I’m about a week into Clarion; the first week of instruction, which was with Paul Park, has finished but it’s only Saturday so the first week isn’t over. Paul has this excellent ability to cut to the heart of the matter of things, or, perhaps, more importantly, to get us to look at the heart of the matter of things. Socratic method — questions, spinning out of implications, changing direction and starting again with more questions, until we seem to have reached somewhere. And storytime: I will really miss hearing him reading stories. The man should be reading audiobooks. So …

I am jetlagged, but not as badly as I could have been, and I am here. Got a room, got a futon mattress for the floor, got a desk and chair. HAven’t unpacked. Will think about it after breakfast. Got wireless internet, which is how I am connecting now. Got lots of bread. TONS of bread. Met almost everyone, which is cool — interesting mix of people. There’s a scary frog. Not scary — more disturbing. Must go get breakfast. No more blogging for a while. Best, all…

I’m not planning on blogging regularly here while I’m at the Clarion workshop, though intermittent posts might make their way here on the backs of digital pigeons. But basically, for the next six weeks, I’ll be writing other things. And that also means if you email me, I may not reply for a while. Even a few weeks. But I will probably read my mail regularly, so if something’s urgent, of course I’ll reply! I hope all my readers have a good summer and subscribe to my RSS feeds so they won’t have to check back — they’ll know when …