Day 6

Light day. No coyotes were scavenging through garbage and howling in the morning like yesterday (though I slept through it).

We had only 3 stories to crit, and I turned in a 4500 word teen fantasy story. It's about an ugly duckling teen girl who competes with a beauty queen for a Spanish exchange student with a love potion that's not a love potion. It's the third female protagonist story I've written, my third fantasy, and my first young adult story. Different from my usual work. I'll be curious to hear what the ladies in the group think.

Connie gave another talk on dramatic irony. Walter talked about literary contracts and outlines/synopses. All good stuff. Ironically, the dramatic irony wasn't something I'd had covered in my other workshops/classes. :-)

I exercised a bit, but cut it short to have a personal conference with Walter about my fiction plans. I was glad to hear I'd mapped out a good strategy for myself: get 3-5 pro short fiction sales, then go ahead with novels.

I've got an outline to do over the weekend, prepare to read some stuff for Monday, a George Martin talk to look forward to, and outings in Taos.

We had a grill cook out with hamburgers and hot dogs (along with brownies, potatoe chips/doritos, peanuts, and potato salad). I need to get more vegetables and fiber.

And we topped the evening with another movie night, watching a Carey Grant flick (forgot name) where we had things like clumsy exposition, raising the stakes, reversals, etc. pointed out to us.

Good times.