SCALING THE WHITE MOUNTAIN
September 23, 1999
6:21 p.m.
  The mountain arrived early yesterday. It was tall, and filled with dense crags, a few slippery slopes, some rugged spots, and (for all other purposes) some pretty good writing. The mountain I speak of, of course, is the pile of all our manuscripts written in the past few days. The mountain did not arrive without a few technical difficulties. First, most people--me specifically included--thought that there would be a printer made available this year. We all brought our disks with us to the Wednesday morning session, ready for handing in. Silly us. Our workshop experience was in serious peril. Someone mentioned that there was a Kinkos close by. So I rounded up the disks, and hopped in a waiting car (black and shiney, just like a waiting car should be). Five minutes later I was in front of a kinko's PC printing off manuscripts. A half hour and $125 later, I had about three quarters of the mountain. I never for a moment thought about the fact that asking a newbie, workshopping writer, to go out to get his own pile of manuscripts being anywhere similar to having a kid go out to get his own switch--never crossed my mind. Anyway, I sat in the hotel courtyard most of the day, and deep into the night, marking up the white mountain. I must mention, that these were first drafts of stories written pretty much all in less than 36 or so hours. As such, they had lots of first draft errors. No harm in that, you know? But, I should also say that the White Mountain had some really neat stuff in it, too. Despite reaching the summit very late (too late to even conceive of writing an entry), it was really a pleasurable experience. Yeah, I know. Beat me, hurt me. This morning, I woke up and wrote more on the triceratops story--fleshed it out from the day before. When I last left off, I think I hadn't decided whether to suck it up and flesh it out or not. What I decided to do Tuesday night was to cut everything but the first 1,000 words (cause it wasn't the story I wanted to tell), and start over. So, before I went to sleep, I had a new, 3,500 word story. After this morning's work, I think I'll have my best story of the trip (to date) when I'm done. I won't finish it here, though, because it needs some specific research that I won't be able to do because I need a library. But it'll probably be the first thing I do Monday at lunch. (The research, anyway. I'll note that the plan I wrote up a couple months ago set aside the first week after I returned as a "Clean up the WotF stories" week. I should have them all out at market by the following week if all goes well. So, today we talked about the stories. Lots of good comments. Lots of interesting takes. As usual, I didn't agree with all those that were wrong (!) :) But, heck, who knows...maybe it's me. Tonight we have a "function." Dinner on the roof. Semi-formal. Should be fun. Tomorrow is rehersal, dinner, and the awards. Gotta run. See all later.  
 Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins | ||||
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