Wednesday, 13 June 2001

There's a scene in the movie "Night Shift" where Henry Winkler tells Michael Keaton that, not only is what they're doing evil, they're making a living at it. Michael Keaton just nods and says "Is American great, or what?" I feel like that. It's too hot; there's too much to read; the food is inedible; there's not enough time to write; we've all been away from home too long. Is Clarion great, or what?

It is hot, about 88 degrees and very humid. I got out my fan, which I hadn't needed until now. Now it's okay, sitting here at my little desk, with my little fan.

I got two packages from Jackie, one yesterday and one today. She sent me a Goat's milk cheese and yogurt t-shirt, and a copy of Terry Prachet's Thief of Time, which she suggested might make good train reading on the way home. (I'm not going to have time to read it before then, that's for sure.)

There's not a lot to note down from class today. Kelly always has really insightful things to say about each story. And they aren't things that just apply to that story--most of them are statements of general applicability. I think I'm internalizing most of them as general concepts, but I'm not coming away from each session with any specific bits that are easy to put here as "Kelly says, . . . ."

John and Corie were talking outside my door and I opened it to see what was going on and they invited me to go to the gym. I hesitated, because I had just started getting some writing done, but then realized that I had missed a couple workouts while I was sick and really needed one. So, I went and got in a workout.

Kelly Link fixed dinner for all of us. We all crowded into her little apartment and ate pot stickers and some puffy white pastries with BBQed pork inside.

I stayed up much too late again tonight, because I was on a roll on my next story. It was going so well I just pushed on to the end. I've got a finished rough draft at 2390 words, virtually all of it written today. We'll see how it looks in the morning, but right now, I like it a lot.

I have three longish mss that I need to read for tomorrow morning. Well, for this morning, actually. But I'm too sleepy to read them now.