Thursday, June 17th, 1999

Yesterday, I was planning to write after I finished working on all my critiques for other people's stories, but we got a late submission that cost me my writing time. In addition to being late, the manuscript was twenty-four pages single-spaced and had a very dense prose style that was hard to follow. That night a number of critiquing support groups formed just for the purpose of helping each other get through the manuscript. We also grumbled a lot.

In particular, I was angry. Why did I have to lose my own writing time for this? I became worried that today's critiquing session would involve a lynching.

The Critiquing Session Follows

Amazingly enough, no lynching followed. After one of us expressed concern to the author about the issues of lateness and the unreadable manuscript format, the rest of the critiquing session focused on the merits and problems within the story itself. Afterwards, the author apologized about the lateness and the format. It turned out that the manuscript was late because the author was still trying to cut material out of it to make it a reasonable length.

Fifteen Seconds of Fame

I got interviewed for a local television news story on the Clarion workshop! Why me? I dunno. Lister asked me to do it. He probably thinks that the pregnancy angle makes me good news material or something.

The Clarion Alumni Blackmailing Scheme

Today we visited the library for instruction in the special collections department at MSU, which stores all the old Clarion manuscripts. The thought boggles the mind. Only here at MSU can one find so many stumbling first drafts of people who later became the great authors of our field. I'm certain that many of these stories are ones that the authors never want to see again. So why does the University store them all?

While I'm sure that these archives are a marvelous resource for literary scholars, just think of the blackmail possibilities... Or maybe the administration of Clarion already has. Is this why so many Clarion Alumni still donate money to the workshop?

Hmm

P.S. For those Alumni reading this, this last post was not meant to belittle your generosity. It is thanks to you that everyone in the workshop (myself included) received a scholarship this year. How many other writing workshops can make that claim?