Getting critiqued today wasn’t as bad as I had built it up in my head. I think I just had all that buildup because the story was really a first draft, like right out of longhand first draft, and I was just freaking out that everyone was going to ask me how I even ended up here.
But that’s just me. I’m okay now. Promise.
After almost a full week, I’m already feeling myself changing my writing, looking for those things that are really problematic even on a small level. I love that shit.
I only have one request for folks back home: please blog for me. Not that I’m all Weather Channel, needing updates every 5 minutes, but I’m so off and on with IM because of the work I’m doing here (revising a submission story, working on a new story, and reading and critiquing about 3 stories a day) that it’s nice to read how everyone’s doing when I have a free minute. It’s only been a week, I know, but I feel like I’m in a bubble sometimes.
And I found that drawing random things with big chalk on the courtyard concrete is a fun way to take a brain break.
The best part so far about the UCSD campus, and I’ll take pictures later, is the tiled snake coiling up around a big marble book with a quote from Paradise Lost, further up around a small bench with a sweet little garden of tallish trees, ending with the snake’s tongue flicking at the Geisel Library. You know, named after Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.
And seriously, if you come see me, I’ll show you.
