My Patronus

[kaitou]

When my mom came down to help me through the whole wisdom teeth debacle of '08, she brought down a whole ton of my things that she thought I might want. They're gradually, glacially getting the house ready to sell, so they've been going through their own piles too. So last night I sat down with a box and went through it. There was my high school diploma, 18 copies of my college commencement program, my black belt and a whole slew of things from when I went to Clarion.

Sometimes, at one in the morning on a Sunday...I'm not sure it was a good idea for me to go or not. I'm not sure if I was really ready for it. I've had a harder time writing for pleasure since then, and a lot more doubt about my skill level. But I learned a lot about writing there, and met some utterly amazing people who are also extremely skilled writers, bardofawen and barthanderson among them.

But anyway, the point I was gradually trying to get to was that looking through the box of stuff triggered a memory. The workshop was about halfway over, and I'd only submitted two stories, and neither of them were especially good. I was desperate to get something, anything written because I really felt like I was at the bottom of the class. I'd been reading a lot of Patricia C. Wrede (Dealing with Dragons) and found the name Sevin in a roleplaying book and wrote a very silly cracked out fairy tale with seven knights and magic swords of science and Monty Python jokes. I thought that at the very worst the other Clarionites would laugh at the Monty Python joke.

I turned it in for critique on the day our new teacher/author arrived and told us, "No comedy please! It's too subjective." Augh! But done was done, and I was just relieved that I'd written SOMETHING.

But then the most amazing thing happened.

I was sitting in my room when some of the other Clarionites stopped by to tell me how funny the story was. How they'd laughed out loud at the coffee shop. Even the teacher that had said 'no comedy' liked it. In fact, the only joke that people hated was the Monty Python joke. It was the first time that I'd written anything that got real enthusiasm from anyone but a teacher. And that is unquestionably my favorite writing memory ever.

The upshot of this is that I feel like I'm at a crossroads. I decided that I really need to get out of my job. I enjoy the profession, but I've been here long enough, I think. So I'm not going to try and move come December. I'm going to switch to month-to-month so I have more flexibility to move for a new job.

Which frees me up some as far as doing something like Nanowrimo goes. I won't be packing at least. But, I also have an ISO audit in November and my boss will be out of the country for about a week. Throw in Thanksgiving back home and I'm just not sure I'll be able to do anything. But I want to. It's done wonders to put the fun back in writing for me, even though I have a very very hard time trying to carry that momentum into the rest of the year. I'm not sure what to do, what I can do...but I think that's a subject for another post.

Comments

[stormgren.livejournal.com]

"My Patronus"

That title now has a certain song by "The Knack" going through my head. There's filk in there somewhere, I'm certain. *grin*

[kaitou1412.livejournal.com]

Ahahahah!
I have to say that this is my favorite HP themed song, though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvvFiZyEyTA

"Opinons stronger than Irish Coffee"

[altodescant.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes...

"In which Method is applied to Mayhem -or- Up the Glass Mountain"

I still have a digital copy of that one and pull it out every once in a while when I need a strong dose of clever humor.

[eramundo.livejournal.com]

I still say come east. Or go west (if you want to follow the classic strategy :-) ). You deserve more out of your regional habitat then a job, an apartment run by a lax corporation, scant opportunities for fun, and miserable winters. If you want to settle for just the first and fourth, on the list then hey, Boston can do that too!

But seriously, as much as I bitch about cost, you can get a classy loft and do that swinging single lifestyle here pretty well!

Or there's always pittsburgh... Or Columbus... lots of universities & decadent coffeeshops to go play at when you're feeling the need for the ol'days and sort of a Boston-Lite in terms of size and pricing.