This is my view from my hotel room where I spent ALL DAY yesterday. If I had been smart, I would’ve moved the desk so I could see the lovely mountains. Instead I stared at a wall. (I really have no relevant pictures to share. Can you tell?)
Yesterday was all about writing a short story. That’s all I did, minus a couple little breaks for food. Thankfully, I volunteered to be one of the first ones to be done, so my deadline was early (at 6p) so I couldn’t fret about the stupid f— thing all night long like I imagine some boot campers are doing. (The second deadline was this morning at 10a.)
To start the day off right, I dropped my 3×5 story card behind my bed the night before while outlining. Actually, before I had even begun to outline. Seriously. And to make it more interesting, that was the ONLY copy I had of it. I almost cried. It fell all the way to the floor and since the bed bottoms have sides, I had to take apart the massive queen sized hotel bed to get it back.
I chose not to accept that as an omen for how things were going to go.
And really, it wasn’t. I had a really solid idea of where everything was going before I even sat down (thanks to OSC’s techniques and my small group on day 2). It made the whole process much, much simpler. I mean, I wrote a pretty decent 7,000 word short story in a day. A long day, true, but this is just the beginning. It’ll get easier. I’ll get faster.
Today we start the critiques. Ironically enough, even though I volunteered first I am somehow the 4th person on the list, so I don’t think we’ll get to mine today. Which, I think is okay. I wanted to go early because I didn’t want to have to worry about my story while critiquing other people’s, but now that it’s in and printed off and in everyone’s hands (!!!), there’s nothing I can do about it. The pressure is gone.
I do want to note that I did turn my story in at 6:40p, late. That’s not my style and I’m fairly embarrassed, but I was making final edits at 6p and it just wasn’t done. Now I know my editing process takes longer than I think, even if it’s a very simple clean up of the work.
Jessi Cole Jackson 