Our group is proving rather profilic in its first week as we returned after lunch to finish critiquing the waiting manuscripts and seven more have been turned in today. I don't know how long my classmates can keep up the pace but I just finished my second story and will turn it in tomorrow morning. It's titled, The Day Julianne Utterback Left Her Job At Aero Tech It's a rather cliche alternate timeline story with a downer ending and I don't really expect it to be critiqued until next week. I hope, however, to write at least one more over the weekend. The pressure is ON.

I also had a meeting with this week's writer in residence and I'm beginning to face the reality that it's probably best if I stop trying to alter my prose style and just concentrate on story. I have a plain, vanilla voice -- what I refer to as a Midwestern blue collar voice -- and it's not the one I would have chosen. I want to be able to do more and yet the more I try to alter it, the more it twists and turns into something that's a parody of what I want. So I'll leave it alone for now and focus on story development. The story, after all, is the cruical element. Prose is just the delivery element. [But I still think I'd rather make deliveries in a Ferrari than a beat-up pickup truck.]

I do think I'm finally beginning to pick up on how to do a better critique. My eyesight is improving in this respect and I'm getting over the nervousness of others turning to watch me while I sputter and eck out what I think of someone else's story. Printing out my notes rather than trying to read my scrawl is also helping.

We all went to dinner tonight -- well, almost all of us -- and then to the bookstore for Suzy McKee Charnas's reading. She read her Hugo-winning story, BOOBS and I must say that I've never heard a more amusing and horrific werewolf story.

Got to go. The printer finally stopped and I need to key in my notes for the critiques. We won't do all seven tomorrow but I want to have as much completed as possible and I would also like to get more than 3-5 hours of sleep tonight.