There's a sign in the women's showers that says, "DO NOT HOCK LOOGIES. DO NOT PEE IN THE SHOWER." Which would be all right except that there is no such sign in the men's showers. They're allowed to hock loogies and pee in the shower all they want.

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Well, we're not critiqueing submission stories to get things started.

Let me rephrase that. Submission stories are not being passed out for us to take back to our rooms and critique. Paul spent much of yesterday's class reading a variety of stories aloud, from authors whom he felt typified the type of writing he wants us to work on. After that he did read one of the submission stories aloud, and then we spent most of the rest of the class playing with it. It was not really a formal critique (moreso since at first Paul did not tell us who had written it) but just an examination of the basic concept and ways it could have been stronger. Then we did a small writing/plotting exercise in class, taking the basic concept of the story and thinking of other ways to make a story around it. Half of the class was supposed to think of a beginning to a story, and the other half was supposed to think of an end to a story, and then build the rest of the story from that point. It was cool to see the variety of ideas that people came up with.

People (including myself) were so nervous about not being able to come up with ideas for stories here. But that was probably the most unfounded fear any of us had. Once you get into the flow of things, and especially once you start actually talking about stories, the ideas come... tons of them. The trick is to write them down as soon as they hit, I've discovered.

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But anyway, I finished my first story last night. It came in at just over 2800 words. I'm still not sure I grasped what we were supposed to be doing as far as using writing to evoke imagery, but at least it's semi-coherent. This is where the Novel Dare is going to pay off. As I was writing, and getting discouraged and slightly freaked out at the short amount of time I had, I was able to tell myself that I had written 4000 words in a day before. Just write the words, Diana. Fix it later.

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I'm going to have to do something to stabilize my diet. I'm snacking way too much and it's playing merry hell with my digestion. (Yes, Diana, thank you for sharing.) But the last thing I want to do is gain all that weight back. It's sorta drizzly this morning, but I'm going to try and run this afternoon. We have several runners in the class, and many others who are walkers or other types of exercisers. Hopefully we can try to keep each other going.

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Thanks to everyone who is emailing. I love it and appreciate it very much. I don't have much time to respond (consider this journal to be your response), but please keep it coming. It's always a real boost.