About 5pm yesterday Susan was in the lounge trying to see if anyone else wanted to take a break and go see a movie. I had hit a major roadblock on my story (yes, the one that I've been fighting since last week), I was frustrated as all hell, and so I said I'd go along. It ended up being eight of us, including Connie, to go see "Six days seven nights." (By the way, this was Connie's fifth time seeing this movie! She really likes Harrison Ford.) The movie was cute and funny, and then afterwards, while the credits were rolling, Connie proceeded to give a plot lesson using elements of the film as examples. "When they saw the pirates--that was a reversal. And when they got to the cliff, that's an obstacle!"

So after the movie we decided to get dinner, and went to the Rock Bottom Brewery. The hostess asked us how many in the party, then asked conversationally where we were all from. "All over," was the reply. And then Connie said, "These are all my children!" The poor gullible hostess said, "Really?!" To which Connie replied, "Yes, and it's my 70th birthday! They're taking me out for dinner!" Well, the hostess didn't buy that at all, so we relented and told her we were writers. And for the rest of the night, our waiter kept telling us he wanted to appear in one of our stories.

But we finally made our way back to the dorm, and for lack of anything better to do (like write) we stood in the dorm hallway talking. Robert was doing his usual walk-up-and-down-the-hall-while-reading, and we had just watched Ellen's videotape on Dog Agility courses, so we proceeded to make tunnels and slalom courses for Robert to walk through. We got to laughing so hard that everyone else started coming out into the hall, and so we made them all go through our archways too.

Maybe you had to be there, but it was screamingly funny. This is why you should stay in the dorm if you come to Clarion. There's so much you miss out on, including interaction with the instructor, if you don't. Connie is in the lounge quite often, telling us all sorts of terrific stories about writing and publishing. She is one very funny lady.

And the cool part was after all that, when I went back to write, I had a revelation about my story, and it all fell into place.