So I didn't get into Clarion. I received the official rejection today, but I guessed as much a few days ago, because some people had posted online that they had been accepted, and if I had I would have been contacted then; it doesn't take that long to call 18 people.
I am disappointed, but I did do my best, so that just means I'm not good enough yet. At any rate I can begin to plan for the summer; my new goal is to sell a story before the end of the year.
LK is totally in puppy love-land.
Weilun got into Columbia for grad school.
...I don't know what's happening with other people, except that Jiemin is now 100 percent a Browncoat.
Update, please!
Nothing much has been happening. I'm still waiting to hear from Clarion; I've been so antsy I've been Google Blog Searching to see whether anyone else has heard, but as far as the blogosphere goes, our apps might as well have been sent to the ether.
One thing I did learn though, is that I am a massive idiot, because there's apparently a sister workshop called Clarion West that operates over the exact time frame, and the line up of instructors there is just as impressive, and so I completely missed out on that opportunity. Which sucks, but what are you going to do.
I really wish Clarion would call or email soon; I do desperately want to get in, but if I don't *touch wood* at least I can start planning for the summer.
So tonight, in my Advanced Fiction class, my story was up for critique. What really threw me off? Seeing a classmate read and make notes on her copy of my story fifteen minutes before class. Seriously, if you're going to insult me like that maybe you SHOULDN'T DO IT SITTING BESIDE ME.
Jesus.
I've been reading Ian McEwan's "On Chesil Beach" in fits and starts, and when I woke up this morning I took it up to finish the final stretch. Maybe it's because I have a hardcover copy, and removed the jacket when I bought it, or maybe it's because the final fifth of the book is so godawfully depressing in that lost opportunities-way, but somewhere along the line it was fixed in my mind that I was reading a Kazuo Ishiguro book. It was somewhat of a surprise to turn to the final appendix pages and read the initials "IM". Talk about cognitive dissonance.
I just got an e-mail from the Clarion people. So almost 200 submissions were received this year, and 18 will be selected, so I have about a one in ten shot of getting in. And they hope to announce the 18 by mid-March, so maybe I'll find out about it in Berlin.
Thank god spring break is coming. I think I need an extended break from computers, because I might be developing a physical reaction to them. Even as I type this my right shoulder blade is (again) shooting pain up and down the right side of my body.
...of course, maybe I'm just sleeping wrong, but since I wake up in different positions, and can't actually tell how I slept during the night, this is unverifiable.