The Call

Tonight I am remembering just how much I hate blogging and why. It's hard enough opening up with personal experiences when someone is listening. But talking to the dark feels both pointless and strange. I have to remember that this blog is for me, for the future self who will wonder what it was like, to be getting ready for Clarion. There are so many events in my life for which I lack memories of a 'before' of the anticipation and eagerness. I don't want this to be one of them.

So, the call.

It's Wednesday. Wednesday is my day off, so I make plans to meet my Mom and younger brother for breakfast at a local place called Glo's. The three of us have an excellent time and I talk about how I'm doing much better with my anxiety than I was the week before. I've even developed a mantra. It's: "It's okay to hope. It's okay to be disappointed."

I have taken to muttering those words under my breath at least once an hour, frequently more often. After breakfast, we walk back to my Mom's apartment. My brother has an online final to finish and retreats to his room. Mom and I stay in the living room, where I continue to pat myself on the back for getting my anxiety back down to manageable levels.

My cell phone rings from across the room. I freeze, then force a smile. "It's probably Sean," I say. It doesn't matter that Sean's at work and would text if he needed anything. I don't want to look excited. If I look excited I will be that much more embarrassed when it's not what I want it to be. My much lauded control leaves me completely, and my pulse begins to race.

I get to the phone and check the number. Not Sean. A local area code. Clarion West is local. But that, of course, is impossible. Probably a telemarketer, I force myself to think. I keep smiling, keep my movements casual, and answer the phone.

And a voice asks me if I would be interested in joining this years Clarion West class. Our connection isn't the best, so for a second, I wonder if I might of misheard. I haven't. It's real. My throat closes up, and I almost start to cry, right there on the phone. I have to apologize and tell her I'm freaking out. It's embarrassing and I force myself to start breathing again while I pace the kitchen. She explains that it was a very competitive year, and it's an honor to be chosen. I say I know, that I feel incredibly honored, that I couldn't be more excited. This is all true. I'm also descending into complete panic, but she doesn't need to know that. We talk for a little while, and hang up. She promises more information will arrive by email soon.

At which point, I set down the phone and return to the living room. It should be noted, at this point, that I do not handle positive emotions well. Which is why I start sobbing and shaking. Huge, hysterical gasps. It takes a few minutes for me to get it under control.

And I still feel like that sometimes. It's not a bad feeling. It's just, this is so huge, for me. And it all bubbles up, and then my throat closes and my vision blurs. I haven't actually broken down since the first time, but I've been tempted. I'm doing better with it now. I think, as I take steps toward my destination like meeting my classmates, buying the books of the instructors, and getting my idea journal into shape, it becomes something real, something that can exist in this world, something I can cope with.

I Hold With Those That Favor Fire

I had intended to make this post about the second step in my journey to Clarion West, specifically the step where I went out in desperate search of discouragement and found only love and support. Really what sort of writer has a uniformly supportive family? It's embarrassing  None-the-less, that's what happened. All I needed was one no, from anyone, to break the spine of my fledgling ambition.

Without said discouragement, I was stuck with frantically revising a story for submission. Which is also not something I'm going to talk about, except to say that I spent the whole of February hacking away at the poor thing. In the end, I was very satisfied with the result, even happy. And there, my friends, lay the difficulty.

You see, at the end of February I scraped together my newly revised story, an older story I didn't feel needed revision, and my personal essay (which I might post later, even though I kinda hate it) and I sent them off to Clarion.

And then, I did something that I simply do not do. I started to hope. And it was, frankly, miserable.

Allow me to explain. I am not a person who wants things. Indeed, I make a point of not wanting things. Let us say, that when it comes to desire, I take the Buddhist view. Want=hurt. So, for the most part, I don't.

It's not hard. I have a wonderful life. A decent job, with bosses I like. An amazing boyfriend of almost ten years. The aforementioned frustratingly supportive family. A tiny apartment in the city I love most in the world. So I suppose it's no surprise to discover that I find it easy to be happy, to not want anything beyond what I already have.

And then, along comes Clarion. Clarion, like having a crush on my best friend's girl. Beautiful, clever, funny Clarion making eyes at me from across the room. She's expensive. She's high maintenance and demanding.  But man, she's the most talented girl I know.

And me, feeling guilty on just about every level possible. Guilty for applying when it would be such a burden on Sean and I if I got in. Guilty for being so arrogant as to think I even had a chance, when better applicants surely existed. Guilty simply for the act of wanting, which, let me reiterate, I try not to do. And guilty for the mood that all this guilt and and want put me in, a constant roiling anxiety that left me feeling like I might throw-up anytime I thought about it.

See? Want. Not a good emotion for me. And I had never wanted anything for myself this badly. Years back, wanting Sean to find a job in his field, yes, but that wasn't about me, wasn't in my control, and so felt less acute. This felt like drowning.

And it just went on and on.

But it was worth it. All that madness, all that wanting, and it was worth it. And yeah I still feel a little like I've set a date with my best friend's girl. There are so many people out there who I'm sure deserve this more than I do. But she says she's in to me. And I guess I'm not quite honorable enough to turn her down.

Impossibilities

The memory I have takes place in December, right around Christmas. It's a memory of one conversation among many, but it's the one that stands out the most to me. My boyfriend, Sean, and I go over to my Mom's place every Saturday for dinner. She is, I should note, an amazing cook.

After dinner, for whatever reason, I brought up Clarion West. I didn't bring it up in an 'I can't wait to apply' way. I think if anything, I was looking for sympathy. A 'look at this wonderful thing that I can never have' sort of moment. I wasn't newly aware of Clarion West, I lurked about the website wistfully every year. But this year, with Neil Gaiman teaching, my wistfulness had turned to something a bit more whiny.

And so, I told my mother, at length, how lucky the students who would be taking classes at Clarion were, and how impossible it was for me to ever do anything similar.

Sean, ever the logical one, isn't a fan of the word impossible. He quickly pointed out that there was no reason why I couldn't get in to Clarion.

Oh, but I was ready for him! I had a list of reasons why my dreams were impossible. (Never make lists of reasons why your dreams are impossible. Make lists of reasons why they aren't!)

The list was, basically, as follows:

1) It was six weeks long and I couldn't leave him for six weeks.
2) I also couldn't leave work for six weeks.
3) We couldn't hope to afford it.
4) I wouldn't ever be accepted in, so why waste the $40 dollars applying?
5) Who needs stupid old Clarion, anyway?
6) I suck.

Sean wasn't exactly impressed and pointed out:

1) Sure I could.
2) They would understand, and if they wouldn't it was worth it.
3) We could find the money, or borrow it if necessary.
4) Forty dollars was no big deal.
5) Nobody needed it. But it was a huge opportunity, and I should be afraid to try, if I was interested in it.
6) No I didn't.

Which wasn't much different from what he'd said the four previous times we'd had the exact same conversation. But I'm not entirely dense. It is possible to get through to me with repetition. I conceded that it might not be entirely impossible. I might, maybe, theoretically, be able to apply to Clarion. Not that they would ever want me.

But something in my thinking, shifted. I stopped resenting an impossibility and started trying to figure out, how, exactly, I might go about applying.

Mission Statement

I'm not good at blogging. I would go so far as to say I'm bad it. It's difficult, for someone as intensely private as I am, to imagine sharing anything personal with the world at large. None-the-less, I keep trying to blog. Keeping a journal is utterly beyond me, at least, with a blog, I can generally force myself into a regular update schedule.

With all that established, why am I sitting here typing this?

Put simply, because I want to remember the coming weeks and months. I want to hold onto this feeling, so very much like falling in love, long after the emotion itself has faded. I am anxious, excited, insecure, elated. 

Or, put more simply, I have been accepted into Clarion West's 2013 class. 

I'll be studying with Joe Hill, Margo Lanagan, Elizabeth Hand, Samuel R. Delany, Ellen Datlow, and with Neil Gaiman whose comments on his own work in Smoke and Mirrors helped me overcome many of my personal blocks around attempting to pursue a career as a writer. 

I have, as you can see, good reasons for all my joyous fear.

My intention is to use this blog to document the journey to Clarion West, to keep an eye on my emotional state as the event grows closer, and to track the ways in which I'm doing my best to prepare.

Besides, I need to put all this down somewhere. If I keep refusing to talk about anything but Clarion West with my family, I'm pretty sure they'll disown me.

Because I'm trying to chronicle this journey from start to finish (though I doubt my ability to blog while in attendance) the first few posts are going to be back in time a bit. I want to put down my thoughts from the moment I decided to apply.

I can't imagine this blog being of interest to anyone but myself. None-the-less, it exists for those who wish to see it.