22

Nicola and I met at the Clarion Writers Workshop 22 years ago today.

Our friend Mark, also a Clarion ’88 alum, has posted some of his workshop memories along with photos — one that shows a workshop session in progress, with me waving my hands and looking serious and so young. Another photo shows all of us dressed like idiots for the traditional Locus photo. Nicola, however, manages to make idiotic look powerful and fascinating instead, so there you go. 22 years later, she still fascinates me and protects me and empowers me to be the best that I can. We love each other.

Thanks to Mark for the memories. And thanks to Nicola for the years, this life together that I love.

Write-a-thon running total: 1,850 words out of 12,000. Still swapping words, deleting as many as I write for a net gain that looks small but actually represents a process of seeing that is essential for me at this stage… It’s as if I am circling, circling, handling the story from every angle, trying to find the way in that will open it up most deeply. I’m now at the point of making notes within the text as openings appear: for example, what I thought was a throwaway line is actually an opportunity to introduce one of the important characters, and so it needs to be its own scene. Tomorrow.

Some of these openings won’t lead anywhere productive. And then it’s more sentences off to word heaven, or wherever they go when I delete them. That’s writing. More work, more work, but the lovely thing about being 22 years on from Clarion is that I know how to do it.