PanLabyrinth Sunday afternoon and I’m back from the city. We went to see Pan’s Labyrinth (fantasy). An excellent film, way scarier than I expected! Full of imaginative wanderings to give us writers some more fuel for our work. Definitely recommended viewing, but not one to take the niece/nephew to.

The weeks seem to go in bursts. Incredible activity, writing to a deadline, you get a story in, and then have a lull. After a few days you start the cycle over again.

It’s Sunday and I’m spending the afternoon working on a new story. It’s about A’ Boy At The Hospital’ who gets more than surgery. A high speculative fiction element. I’m enjoying it and just letting it take me where it will.

Like I wrote in Week 2, I’m starting a lot of stories at Clarion South. I still seem to be struggling most with completing pieces to a point I’m happy with. So, I find what I’m doing is working on a single story to submit to each week’s workshop. I’ll write a few hours on this and then, when I grow tired of it, I’ll try writing something else (usually short) to get my energy going. As long as I do between one and three hours on my workshop story each week I make progress.

Part of life after Clarion will be revisiting all the story ideas from the workshop. It’s a great chance to think of new things, while we’re in this intensive environment, even if we don’t finish them. It will be a long time until I get a similar opportunity, I’m sure.