aamcnamara (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aamcnamara) wrote2008-04-17 10:31 pm
aamcnamara) wrote2008-04-17 10:31 pm
Entry tags:
Odyssey, and other pieces
To a certain extent, this journal has lost its point.
Originally, it was to chronicle my adventures in applying to the Clarion workshop in 2008. (Owing to their last-minute clarification of policy, of course, I didn't apply.) It then fell back on the other workshops I was applying to: Odyssey, Alpha, IYWS. All three have now replied, and all three accepted me.
With those deadlines gone, it feels like there's time to relax. There isn't, really. For one thing, it's the Season of the Standardized Tests. The ACT is over; so is the state math standards test, which may or may not count toward graduation--depending on whom you ask. The SAT, SAT IIs (the day before Odyssey starts!), AP and IB tests are all still yet to come.
And then Odyssey wants a second story from me, and a third on the first day of the workshop. Having heard some of the comments and compliments on Story #2, which I sent them, I am nervous that it will prove to be a brilliant fluke, and not representative of my greater work. I feel, in effect, nervous and uncertain. I don't think that they'll kick me out now--well, I hope that they don't--well, they probably won't.
But several people have commented on the voice in story #2 especially. I don't think that either story #1 or the potential story #3 that I'm currently sighing over (in the midst of homework! and tests!) has as distinct a voice as does the narrator in story #2. I don't even know where I found that voice.
--
I have realized lately that I have two houses and no home. I think that this happens a lot, with kids who have divorced parents with equal custody, but it was a shock in some ways to realize this. I'd thought for so long that my parents' divorce was an entirely positive thing that this negative aspect of it really was, well, a surprise to me.
And I'm not sure how to fix it, except maybe to write about it, which is sort of what story #3 will be, if it ever gets out of my brain.
--
Other things that have happened:
- My mother has agreed to take me to WisCon. (I will be sad when I go off on my own and I have to pay for all this stuff myself. From, uh, my writing. ... Or just not go to this sort of thing.) I'm excited, because going to Odyssey means not being able to go to Fourth Street.
- I've finished working on the school's musical and begun a sort of apprenticeship in lights in our student-run black box theatre. It's interesting. They do it, once, and then go off and leave me to it, assuming I've watched carefully enough to learn.
- We had our spring break, and I spent an exhausting week visiting colleges in NYC and western MA, bracketed by late-night flights. On the one back, the woman sitting next to us had a cat. Good job at preventing allergies, Airline That Shall Not Be Named. Good job.
Originally, it was to chronicle my adventures in applying to the Clarion workshop in 2008. (Owing to their last-minute clarification of policy, of course, I didn't apply.) It then fell back on the other workshops I was applying to: Odyssey, Alpha, IYWS. All three have now replied, and all three accepted me.
With those deadlines gone, it feels like there's time to relax. There isn't, really. For one thing, it's the Season of the Standardized Tests. The ACT is over; so is the state math standards test, which may or may not count toward graduation--depending on whom you ask. The SAT, SAT IIs (the day before Odyssey starts!), AP and IB tests are all still yet to come.
And then Odyssey wants a second story from me, and a third on the first day of the workshop. Having heard some of the comments and compliments on Story #2, which I sent them, I am nervous that it will prove to be a brilliant fluke, and not representative of my greater work. I feel, in effect, nervous and uncertain. I don't think that they'll kick me out now--well, I hope that they don't--well, they probably won't.
But several people have commented on the voice in story #2 especially. I don't think that either story #1 or the potential story #3 that I'm currently sighing over (in the midst of homework! and tests!) has as distinct a voice as does the narrator in story #2. I don't even know where I found that voice.
--
I have realized lately that I have two houses and no home. I think that this happens a lot, with kids who have divorced parents with equal custody, but it was a shock in some ways to realize this. I'd thought for so long that my parents' divorce was an entirely positive thing that this negative aspect of it really was, well, a surprise to me.
And I'm not sure how to fix it, except maybe to write about it, which is sort of what story #3 will be, if it ever gets out of my brain.
--
Other things that have happened:
- My mother has agreed to take me to WisCon. (I will be sad when I go off on my own and I have to pay for all this stuff myself. From, uh, my writing. ... Or just not go to this sort of thing.) I'm excited, because going to Odyssey means not being able to go to Fourth Street.
- I've finished working on the school's musical and begun a sort of apprenticeship in lights in our student-run black box theatre. It's interesting. They do it, once, and then go off and leave me to it, assuming I've watched carefully enough to learn.
- We had our spring break, and I spent an exhausting week visiting colleges in NYC and western MA, bracketed by late-night flights. On the one back, the woman sitting next to us had a cat. Good job at preventing allergies, Airline That Shall Not Be Named. Good job.
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--(signed) One Who Knows.
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I came across your post and thought, Wow, that's too bad about this kid being a minor and not being able to go to Clarion this year. Congrats on the tough feat of gain entrance to the Odyssey, Alpha, IYWS because, again: Wow. I'm not so much a minor (she says sheepishly) and will be attending Clarion at UC San Diego this summer. But I easily recall having had a stupid crappy home life when I was a teen and using school, the arts, friends, and reading to escape. I'm sending you good vibes.
--Mary
wondersofmaybe.blogspot.com
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On one hand I feel like I'm maybe exaggerating too much, or being ungrateful, because I do have two houses and two parents who both love me and support my writing and are helping me get to Odyssey this summer. But on the other hand, well, it's true that I feel like neither place is really my home. Maybe it's just because I move between them so often, or, well--
Anyway, thanks. And congratulations on getting into Clarion! Their lineup of teachers for this summer is really phenomenal.