Clarion, Last Day

Move out is tomorrow.  I'll pack up my collection of too-much stuff and drive back to my parents' house, where I'll be living for the time being. 

The last six weeks have been brain-meltingly fantastic.  I can't remember the last time I was so sleep deprived and simultaneously caffeinated, but neither can I remember a time have ever worked harder in my life.  (The only possible exception would be during Latin on the second go-round.  I wanted to learn it then.)  My sense of constructing a story has grown to an unbelievable degree. 

I don't think I was expecting quite such extreme growth.  I've learned more about writing in six weeks than I did in the last four years (at a hugely successful and innovative university-level writing program).  It wouldn't have happened--or at least been so dramatic--if everyone who'd gotten in wasn't an incredible writer.  One woman's story (that was written while here), she got it critiqued, went home, revised it in two days, sent it off, and within the week Strange Horizons had emailed her saying they'd be pleased to publish it.  To my knowledge no one else has sent stories out, but I know in my bones that there are at minimum several more stories from these people that will be published in the not-so-distant future.  Everyone in this program is an incredible writer.  

All this to say: if you're a speculative fiction writer, apply to Clarion.  If you're worried about the price, apply for a scholarship.  The return is incredible.  Clarion is worth whatever you put into it and more. 

Graduation is Sunday

Hooooly cow.  Yes.  Graduation is Sunday.  I've got a couple other stories I've been meaning to write up, but honestly the last two weeks have been horrifyingly busy. Wrote my last academic paper.  Still trying to catch up with all the reading for my very very last final exam (which, disturbingly enough, is four days after graduation.  Argh!).  And I've got forty pages of a novel beginning due tomorrow.

I made struffoli today.  Yes, again.  There were two separate instances where I dropped the dough into the oil, it splashed a bit, landed on the burner, and flickered into an actual flame.  Oops.  Thankfully it burned out about as soon as it took me to blink at the flame and wonder what the hell I was supposed to do if water was out of the equation.  (Oddly enough, the proper way to put out a grease fire when one doesn't have access to a fire blanket never came up in the last year and a half.) 

I made two batches.  One was for the potluck-thing for our last prose writing workshop class, the other was a thank-you for the prof, who has agreed to write me a letter of rec.  I put them both into my bike basket (as I ran out the door six minutes after class had already started) and one of them shifted enough that the honey icing ended up dripping everywhere.  I didn't even notice at first, so I was walking through the CCS building leaving a dripping trail of honey icing and sprinkles behind me. 

And then it landed on my feet.  And my sandals.  And my legs.  And my shirt.  And I realized what was going on, jumped in surprise, and accidentally poured it all over a classmate's backpack, a nearby desk, and the floor.  Ran off to the bathroom to try to unwrap the struffoli without spilling more outside of a sink where it could be washed down and ended up using the one sink with terrible water pressure.

Oops.

It was just one of those days.  Everything tasted really good, though.