I've been keeping busy. Not with what I thought I would be doing but busy nonetheless. I thought I'd be writing a novel based off of the outline I previously mentioned that I'd written. That's not happening. Don't know if it was the outline that killed it (I think not) or the other things I need to do (likelier).
Every time I go to open up that Word document my heart begins to feel like an empty hamster wheel. Then the document opens and I stare at it. I breathe a bit. My fingers don't move. Then somewhere inside me a fluffy pet rodent comes along and says 'oh! a heart/hamster wheel!' and then jumps in and starts running. Then I shut down the Word document, kick out the hamster, make some coffee and wait for my heart to return to its normal shape.
So I've been working on other projects. Including the deadline that I mentioned tangentially on Monday when I posted about "deadline food." That project is done (for the moment), but I have a few more deadlines coming up this month.
I like the sensation of having deadlines -- especially when they're not school related. It makes me feel like a working writer -- and as far as sub-definitions of writer go, working writing is the one I want the most.
I was very happy to have my father swing through town this week on business. He took me out to dinner and fixed my wireless hub. The hub had been an untamed freak for the past few months. I'd tried everything I could think of but there was nothing for it so I just went back to plugging into the wall and mooching a wireless signal off my neighbors so that I could check email on the iPod. Now the wireless hub is tame -- it wears polo shirts with the collars popped it's so tame.
But even more than deadlines and social visits, this month has been marked my two things: attending everything I neglected at the end of last semester, and getting ready to leave town for two months.
I've been accepted to Odyssey this summer. It's six weeks of daily class, workshop, and whip crackin lifestyle change. I'm totally looking forward to it.
It's focused on writers of the speculative or what is more commonly known as the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. I say writers and not writing because the workshop has a diagnostic approach/philosophy. Before I arrive the program director will have already read two completed short stories that I've written. After we workshop a third short story in the days immediately following my arrival, she and I will sit down and have a one on one chat, diagnose my strengths and weaknesses, figure out a game plan for the next five weeks.
I'm going to be working like mad during that time period (daily class and a story a week?! -- Game face, folks, game face). I won't be blogging from the workshop, but to keep the blog alive I'm working on blog posts ahead of time (now) and using the fabulous "scheduled at" feature to set material to publish at later dates. I'll still read and respond to comments anyone leaves, as well as post an occasional I'm alive! post or maybe even pictures from the 500 miles of I-90 I'll traverse on my fourteen hour drive to New Hampshire.
Highly Recommended
