I just got accepted into Lambda Literary Foundation’s 2011 Writers’ Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices!!
It’s a weeklong immersion program, and I’ll be in the genre fiction track with eight to ten writers, under the tutelage of prolific crime/sci fi author Claire McNab.
The retreat takes place at UCLA, so my trip to Los Angeles will hopefully also give me a chance to catch up with long-neglected West Coast friends.
In the meantime, I’m finishing up my rebuilt fantasy manuscript, and–with contradictory sentiment–can report that I am 50 pages away from completion.
On one hand, I’m encouraged that this massive rewrite—which often seemed too big, too high, too labyrinthine—is really, truly in my reach. On the other hand, I find myself wallowing a bit in anticipatory grieving.
I’ve fallen in love with my characters, even the difficult ones who slyly hid their motivations, missed their scene cues, and argued continually with my direction. With the end—the curtain call—in sight, I realize soon I’m going to leave them piled under many files in a ‘Documents’ folder, maybe to be visited from time to time, but no longer a part of my daily life.
The other day I re-read my manuscript, not to proofread or edit, just to re-experience what I had written, and get to know the characters and the story again.
With months ahead of writing, workshopping and incorporating feedback, it seems silly to say, but it’s going to be hard to say goodbye.
