one month

[albionidaho]

Clarion West starts in one month.

We're all a little nervous at my house. Rice is nervous because he's going to have to cut it without me for six weeks, and I'm going to go have the most amazing, freakishly intense, wild experience in Seattle.

Am I ready?

Is he ready?

Thank goodness we still have four weeks.

The really cool thing is that pretty much everyone who has been told I'm going is incredibly excited for me and is being wonderfully supportive. The mother of one of Avadore's best school friends has offered to help out where she can, purely because our sons adore each other.

Also, they live nearby. I suspect they're also just kind people.

I was in the local bookstore the other day and they had a Chuck Palahniuk display. I about lost my cheese. I wanted to yell, "Do you see this? Chuck Palahniuk, people. Chuck Palahniuk. I'm going to learn from Chuck Palahniuk!" And then I got to the Cory Doctorow display...

I have no idea how I'm going to refrain from being a total idiot in front of the other seventeen Clarionites1 and our instructors.

1 I can't take credit for this term; all the credit goes to CM3, who will also be attending.

Comments

[albionidaho.livejournal.com]

It is helpful, Eric :). If I get too petrified to write I'll just tell myself that the Great Eric Mayer would be, too :).

I think I'll be able to write, I think it will just all be absolute crap. But I plan to write extraordinary crap, not just ye olde whatevah crap.

[albionidaho.livejournal.com]

He he.

I figure the best I can do is go in and do my best, learn all I can, come home, be patient with myself and allow myself to process it and then continue to do my best.

What do you think?

[jlundberg.livejournal.com]

Actually, "Clarionites" has been around for quite a while. It was what we called each other in 2002, but had been coined long before that. It's even the name of the LJ group for Clarion alumni: clarionites.

But yeah, learning from Palahniuk and Doctorow is going to be beyond awesome.

[albionidaho.livejournal.com]

Hehe. I'm definitely clueless :).

Has anyone else used the term "clarioning"?

It's definitely going to be quite the experience.

[eclexys.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard "Clarioning," but we used the term "Clarionites" (in 2006) as if it were already, you know, the term. Though in my head I used "Clarionates" (as in neonates) to describe us that first week, till we got into the swing of things. And a couple of times, "Clarionistas" was bandied about.

Coinages at our week included "Vampocalypse" and "Jazzpunk" and I think there was "Ozpunk" (for Ian's Australian fantasy, though now I think I'd prefer to call it Auspunk) and a few more, I'm sure.

[shaolingrrl.livejournal.com]

You know, I never squeed on your behalf, did I? Now that school is officially out--

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[albionidaho.livejournal.com]

Happy summer break!!! :)

And thanks :D. I'm horribly excited. And this should probably help with some of my social issues we discussed months and months ago. I was thinking about going to cons this year, but I think Clarion will cover those for '08.

[albionidaho.livejournal.com]

Absolutely--it's amazing how time and reflection changes how we see things, especially in our own work. I also understand that because we learn so much it takes our brains quite a while to process and implement the information.

I am continually grateful that I did the grad school thing--it's definitely helped me have a much thicker skin and have some separation between myself and how I identify with my work. I suspect, however, that having eighteen other people sit there and pick my stories apart might be challenging :). *whew*

[albionidaho.livejournal.com]

It may not be guts--it may be stupidity :).