Sounds Like Weird
06 October 2004
Today’s group grope consisted of two shorts from Geoff. One of them I especially liked, despite the bobbles in the piece. It really had a mythic feel to it and I really liked the premise. Suffice to say it was a story that I read, thoroughly enjoyed, and only then my hindbrain went “wait a minute….”
Then the day’s lecture from Laura Mixon on The Care and Feeding of your Beast. After lunch, I had my one-on-one meeting with Laura, which was very productive. By the time I got there, I’d managed to come up with some ways to solve some of the problems I saw in the piece, so we discussed those, as well as some other issues no one had pointed out yet. Afterward, we discussed some elements of career strategy (based on a comment she’d made earlier and I wanted to follow up on).
Much of Wednesday was open for a mental break from the pressure, which was truly welcome at this point. I took a three-hour nap, then went to dinner at Lola’s, the southern seafood restaurant adjoining the Island Inn.
Afterward, I found the room too dingy (in lighting) and warm, so I went down to the class area, where I sat in front of a fan. Teresa Nielsen Hayden came in, wearing a bear mask, followed by a bunch of other people not wearing masks.
While they went on to play Thing and Mafia, I wanted to continue writing, so I didn’t join in.
I started working on a new story that Jim had encouraged me to write, as well as a different story I’d been intending to work on. When I say “started,” I mean the opening paragraph is written for each. Typically, I don’t change those much. I couldn’t find a place to be comfortable, so I moved around several times in the antechamber outside the main VP room.