As my long-time blog followers know, I just just barely missed Clarion West last year — I was an alternate but never called to replace anyone.  I followed the progress of the workshop and friends like Jordan Lapp and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz very closely, wishing I was there with them, writing my heart out.  Wishing, but not writing.  I didn’t produce any new writing last summer.  It hurt too much to even think about it, knowing how very close I came to CW and falling short.

This year, again as people know, I fell shorter, not even making the waiting list.  There are a variety of factors that could have led to this (including my inability to count), but I’m home again.  At least I’m writing this time.  While I didn’t get many bankable words typed during my camping trip, I got my novel back on the rails.  Once again I have a chance to finish a draft before school starts.

I am still bummed about not being at CW.  I do suspect I’d be miserable there by the second or third week, missing my daughter.  Six weeks is so long.  So maybe I’m better off here.  That helps.  It also helps knowing that the story that didn’t get me in to CW got me into the WotF workshop (and the anthology).  It helps a little more knowing the story that got me waitlisted last year may have finally found a home (shortlisted for an anthology).  Nothing helps with rejection like success.

I’m happy for Tracie and Sandra and the others at CW.  I hope they learn a ton.  Same goes for the folks at Clarion – San Diego.  I’m still pretty convinced I will not be applying to either workshop next year.  It’s been a real hardship on my family just speculating how we would handle my absence and it would be too much for next summer.  Besides, I hope to get my career on track by this time next year (with an agent for my first novel, a solid draft for my second, three or four more short story sales, stuff like that).  I’m not expecting to be too good for the Clarion workshops, just have enough momentum that I won’t need them as a launching pad.

I’ve said all this before.  This post is probably more for my own catharsis than anything else.  (Hey, I looked it up and used that word right!)  I know there are kindred spirits out there, wishing they were among peers under the tutelage of pros.  I say to those spirits, don’t waste this time.  Write.  Write crap if you have to (we all do sometimes), but write something.  You don’t have to do the Clarion model’s story a week — who has time for that in the real world? — but get words on paper.  It is my biggest regret from last year, that I had nothing to show for that time.

I may not have time to write today (I have a lot of church obligations) but it is on my mind.  It will happen tomorrow and throughout the week.  And the next.  I haven’t updated my novel status bar in a while because I’m in an add-and-subtract place where any count would be false.  I hope to be past that and get it updated in a few days.  I bet the novel surpasses the 50,000 word mark.  That’s not bad as long as I don’t crest 80,000; that would likely be too much for a YA book.  I am excited about writing (not always the case, as you writers know).  It feels good.  The only way to get from those low points (like I was in last year at this time) to these excited points is to write your way there.  So get writing.  After all, that’s what makes you a writer.