It’s taken me the better part of a week to get re-acclimated to life at home. It’s so good to be with my family again, but there was the laundry and the putting-away-of-stuff and the ordering of more books and the reading of more books and the writing of novel notes that needed to be [...]
Archive for July, 2008
Re-entry
Posted in Housekeeping on July 25, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Day 12 – Retrospective
Posted in Backstory on July 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Time to bid Montpelier farewell-for-now. I puttered most of the morning, tidying up my things and waiting for the taxi. It was thunderstorming off and on, but the taxi driver didn’t think it would delay flights. I had the good fortune to not only share a cab with two faculty but to see two more [...]
Day 11 – Retrospective
Posted in Housekeeping on July 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The day started early with a lecture by Ellen Howard on Sacred Silence. A self-styled luddite, Howard eschews the use of technology whenever possible – she uses a typewriter (albeit with 1 page memory) and a copy machine. That’s it. No email, no internet, no cel phone.
She inhabits this space in order to give [...]
Somewhere in the Middle
Posted in Housekeeping on July 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Being assigned to Martine Leavitt and knowing that I would be able to work on my novel rejuvenated and inspired me in so many ways, not the least of which was finishing a long overdue project for Galatea Resurrects.
Eileen had sent me a copy of Bob Marcacci’s chapbook “Beijing Background” last year and it [...]
Day 10 Retrospective
Posted in Backstory on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I felt the end of the residency keenly today, taking time to ship some things home and generally catch up on last minute details for my departure in two days. I picked up gifts for family and a few more postcards (which are still unwritten), then managed to hoof it up the hill for Marion [...]
Day 9 – Retrospective
Posted in Backstory on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Tuesday’s lecture was at 8am, but it was one I was really looking forward too – Rita Williams-Garcia’s lecture on loss. She talked about everything from the losses sustained through copyediting to the catastrophic, unexpected loss of an entire manuscript by various means – fire, file failure, choice. She helped me understand that the niggling [...]
Day 8 Retrospective
Posted in Backstory on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Martine Leavitt!
I get to work with Martine this semester! It all falls into place - yesterday, my path could have gone in many different directions: picture books, historical fiction, urban fantasy. But with the selection of Martine as my advisor, there’s no question – urban fantasy. I’m thrilled beyond words! I started writing in the [...]
Day 7 Retrospective
Posted in Backstory on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Sunday lectures started at 8:15 am and I chose to attend the grad lecture on the use of light and movement to show time in stories. Nina Kidd gave a really good lecture and I got another breakthrough on the novel rewrite I’m contemplating. Patti Brown’s lecture on use of the Tarot for deepening character [...]
Day 6 Retrospective
Posted in Backstory on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Got thrown off with having to retcon a few posts, then plunged into the heart of the residency. Day 6 was a long, long, long time ago. I think that’s because Day 5 was my emotional crash and Day 6 I was still trying to regain my equilibrium.
Anyway, this day I decided to take the [...]
Day 4 – Retrospective Pt 1
Posted in Housekeeping, Practicing Risk on July 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
This day was the day I have most looked forward to and the one I was most nervous about – the first real day of lectures and workshop. I’ve described the residency to others as a two-week conference and it has a lot of those markers with the exception that we’re all focused in the [...]
