A Life For Itself

Tag: writing conference

  • Chesapeake Writers Conference – Day 2

    Day two is in the books down here at the Chesapeake Writers Conference.

    Kids and Food

    I did NOT beat the kids to the dining hall this morning. In fact, I didn’t go to the dining hall for breakfast. I woke up feeling like I had a cold or something coming on, so I decided to get some vitamin C.

    I also got a breakfast sandwich from a well-known fast food chain whose name I will not mention so as to avoid the inevitable shaming from my girlfriend. Suffice it to say, the sandwich was really good and I don’t regret the decision in the least.

    I went to lunch as quickly as I could after craft talk and I beat the kids. After workshop, I did the same and beat the kids. One of the student staff members sat next to me towards the end of dinner and informed all of us workshop participants at the table that if we wanted seconds, to go now; the rumor was that “the boys” would be there in five minutes.

    He was right, too. Fortunately, I didn’t want seconds. I’d gotten all the protein (again) that I wanted. So I went and got a couple of cookies to see how those were. The oatmeal raisin ones were really good.

    Craft Talk

    We had two. The poet Liz Arnold and the all-around writer Matthew Hall both presented.

    Liz presented on poems using Germanic and Latinate words in English. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Not just because I love poetry, but because during the presentation, she asked us to identify roots of words in the poems and I did pretty well. More importantly, I took some great notes, especially concerning going and exploring how I use sound and the physicality of words in my writing work. All of it, not just my own poetry (whenever I work it, but that’s neither here nor there). I think I want to come back next year, but for poetry.

    Matthew Hall’s presentation was about using Improv theatre skills to help develop characters.

    The participation in his lecture involved several groups of students getting up and doing Improv and then afterwards, all of us discussing how that particular game could inform character.

    One of the participants, who’s also in workshop with me, was urging me to go, but I refused at every turn. I’ve never been good at Improv and it’s never been fun. Whenever I’ve tried, I’ve never just gone along with the scene partner; my writerly instincts kick in and I want to write the scene instead of being in the scene and allowing the creation of it to be collaborative. I’ve also had apparently, the same problem in my conventional (with a script) acting. So I wasn’t going.

    Still, this sort of thing is good for creating and fleshing out characters. Sometimes, it’s the stuff around the goals your character has, that you need to make the characters truly three dimensional and believable.

    Workshop

    We talked about the personal essay. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation as I’m a huge fan of the form. We read and discussed The Invitation by Barry Lopez and a fabulous essay, The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf.

    One of the things we discussed was staying in the moment and being present to experiences unfolding in front of you and delaying thinking about writing about them until later. Whether that’s a good thing. If it is, are you able to do that. It was a fun conversation. I’m enjoying still thinking about it.

    Afterwards, Angela had us to choose a color, then go outside and walk around campus for 15 minutes, looking for all the things of that color, then using something you found outside as the starter for an essay.

    I chose red and I was going to write about the red in the many bricks used to build the buildings and walking paths on campus and how they remind me of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, but I decided to instead write about the Flag of Maryland. I’m working on that essay after I leave here, so I will not be talking about any of it in this blog.

    Still, the beginning fragment of the essay started us on a pretty in-depth and fascinating conversation. I can’t talk about the conversation until I make some traction with or finish the essay. Just know it was a great conversation. Some very interesting items came up.

    Lecture

    Angela gave today’s lecture. But she didn’t speak on anything a length, so much as she gave us a short primer on film essays, then showed us several. One of them reminded me of the book Reality Hunger by David Shields with its combination of images, found video, narration, and quotes flashing on the screen.

    She told us yesterday that her husband is a filmmaker and one of the films she showed was his. She’s going to be getting into screenwriting to work with him. She’s really doing the damn thing.

    Other (somewhat) good stuff ….

    One of the dining hall employees and her mother have worked at the college since the time I was a student. The mother was there today and said she remembered me. She gave me a hug and caught up on how much things have changed at the college and in town.

    She said that some of the sort of crime you see in suburbs has crept down here into St. Mary’s. I was dismayed to hear that. Back in the day, that was pretty unheard of. She said they’re building too much down here. All of the construction I saw the other day and even the stuff I saw earlier –even more developments in Hollywood– confirms just how much the place has grown. I’m not surprised that the issue that you find in those areas have migrated south. I just hope it doesn’t become too bad. Most of the biggest development seems to have taken place in the last 15 years and that’s a really short period of time for a place to grow and learn to take on some of the problems of bigger suburbs and cities.

    Talked more O’s and Ravens with one of the student-staff members. He’s been at some classic O’s games and he knows quite a bit of O’s history, at 23. I feel so glad for the folks in his generation, now coming of age to have a winning Orioles team. When I was his age, the O’s were into a decline that wouldn’t end until I was well into my 30’s.

    I’m also happy to meet and talk to fellow O’s and Ravens fans down here. I don’t know how it is during fall and spring class sessions, but way back when, the PG folks dominated that sort of talk. But, the Ravens were just getting started and baseball wasn’t that big among my social groups.

    I’m still able to watch TV using my tablet across the Internet. Even though I’m “away” and concentrating on writing during the day, it’s good to have some part of my regular life available. That and talking to my S/O online really have helped.

    My fellow participant who was urging me to Improv is from the area and has seen all the changes around the county, too. She was describing everything that’s different from her point of view. She’s in her early 20’s, so she was growing up around the time that I was just leaving the area, so she saw all the changes first hand, just like the lady at the dining hall. They agree about how much is different.

    Weather Stuff

    Weather Service had issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch down here for the afternoon and evening hours. I kept watch on the Weather Channel app. Skies were really dark around the time that we got out of workshop. I went straight to the dining hall and sat on the patio balcony since I was there before the start of dinner. The storm blew over, thankfully. It did rain, but I don’t think it was anything like what areas north of here received.

    Pictures

    Took a bunch today. Not uploading properly. I’m going to take a bunch more tomorrow. I’ll go off-campus and upload them and hopefully tomorrow night, the upload into the site will work. I may have to share them via Google Photos, even though I want to put them on this site.

  • Chesapeake Writers Conference – Days 0 and 1

    Greetings from the Chesapeake Writers’ Conference 2016, hosted by St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

    Lots to go into, even though I’ve only been here since yesterday and the event runs through Friday night. There’s a lot of “wow, things have really changed” going on. I haven’t been to school here in 20 years and I haven’t visited the campus in 15 years. When I was a student, I thought the place was, in some part, the land that time forgot. Time has caught up and made up for lost time, as it were.

    And there have been some cool writing things going on, too. As well as some not so good things. Here we go …

    Changes

    For the first time ever, I drove the majority of the way down Maryland Route 2. I picked up 2 off of U.S. 50. Since I hadn’t been that way before, the entirety of the road between 50 and Maryland 4 was all new to me anyway.

    Much of the multiplex Route 2-4 was really familiar even through Prince Frederick. They’ve put up a lot of new business along 2-4, but all in all, it looks the same. South of Prince Frederick, all the way through Solomons, everything looked as I remembered. I was using GPS, but I could have used my own memory as my old landmarks were all there and visible.

    Even the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge is still the same and still a pretty intense experience, with its 2 lanes (with no shoulder) over a pretty steep incline. Maryland needs to rebuild this bridge. If I remember correctly, the state has put out questions in the area as to what they should do with the structure. I say get rid of the whole thing and build a bridge with 4 lanes and a shoulder. Same thing for the Harry W. Nice Bridge across the Potomac into Virginia (what’s up with the politicos and engineers back in the day building all these bridges over major bodies of water with just two lanes and no shoulder. The original span of the Bay Bridge was built that way.)

    Across the Patuxent, it’s different story. I couldn’t believe it when I got to Route 235. I’d heard that the area had been really built up. It was beginning when I visited the campus about 14-15 years ago.

    But instead of the somewhat still-rural Route 235 I remember, I saw strip malls all up and down the road between Route 4 and Shangri-La Drive. Hotels. Huge gas stations with mini-marts instead of the old country highway type (with an old, dingy mechanic shop) of stations.

    This 235 looked more like York Road in Timonium than Three Notch Road in St. Mary’s. There, I needed the GPS. Even if some of my old landmarks are still there, some of the names have changed, some are surrounded by new development.

    For instance, the Ledo Pizza is right there, exactly as I remember it, but there were so many new things surrounding it that I almost didn’t recognize the building at first. The gates to NAS Pax River are in the same place, but the new (albeit gorgeous) museum that commemorates the station dominates the view from the road now.

    Down closer to campus, same story.

    The road we used to take to get to town, Youngs Road, was mostly rural, aside from one or two developments; The Greens was one of those and if I remember correctly, it was a favorite among commuter students. The Greens is still there, but along the road are now newer condos and apartments and new home developments. I don’t usually use the term McMansion, but that’s the type of home being built there. From the 280s as the sign says. And many more are under construction right now.

    The campus itself has changed pretty dramatically from my time here. For one, when I drove onto campus and got to DPC, I noticed you could keep going, further into campus. This certainly didn’t used to be the case. There are more dorms and other buildings north of there. There was one inbetween Caroline and the gym and a few more behind Goodpaster that I don’t remember (I also don’t remember Goodpaster, which opened in 2007)

    I knew the old dining hall was no more, as I’d been down by the time they built the new one, but there’s a cinema and presentation room beneath it. The school store is in the same building, over from Anne Arundel Hall (though it may have been there last time I was here, but I think all of this was under construction at the time). The patio is definitely new.

    Baltimore Hall computer lab is still there in the same place (some great memories of pranks and hijinks there) as well as the library.

    They tore down the old Public Safety building. And I don’t see the post office anymore. Getting packages from home in that post office was a life saver.

    One of my fellow workshop participants was surprised to learn earlier that Dorchester Hall didn’t always have air conditioning. Nope. We used to swelter in there. These days, I guess, the kids have creature comforts. I haven’t been in there and I won’t as the writing conference also has a teen component and the teens are staying in there.

    The campus has really grown. I got lost driving. You didn’t used to get lost on this campus. At least Montgomery Hall is where I left it. And it looks largely how I left it. I strolled through the Theatre. The place where I first fell in love with the art of theatre. More on this later, perhaps.

    #

    I went to Buffalo Wild Wings last night to watch Game 7 of the NBA Finals (what a game). While there, I thought about how where I was sitting was probably a patch of land 20 years ago, along with the shopping center across the parking lot, anchored by a Kohl’s.

    When I was here, I never cared for the isolation. Having grown up in the City, this place was at first, a huge shock. Couldn’t walk to the store. Friends were far away. It was so out of my comfort zone and I was too stubborn to let it back in. So for that and other reasons, I went home on weekends as much as I could. I wished I could have a car, but that never materialized. Lots of things never materialized from the experience that could have.

    Today’s students have an exurb here with all the familiar sights from home. If they’re like me and take much to adjust to new settings, then all this new development would probably help them ease in. Being able to go to Buffalo Wild Wings or one of the several Mexican restaurants I’ve seen might go a long way to making yourself feel comfortable so far from home (and again, there were other reasons I wanted to be close to home as much as possible. I really should have taken a gap year, but unfortunately, those hadn’t been invented yet)

    I wondered if I could be a student here now and I don’t think so. I’d rather be on an urban campus. Walking through campus now, I understand those days and myself better. I’m grateful for my time here, but I might have done better in a different setting. However, there are no mistakes. I met some great people during my time here. And still, I’m back for this conference. I’ve changed a little, too.

    Kids on campus

    In addition to the teens in their own section of the writing conference, there is at least one other group of kids on campus, involved in the Maryland State Boychoir concert taking place on campus this week.

    In addition to rooting me in line several times, they have been singing at mealtime. Those kids are really good, too. One of the leaders gives a signal to get up and once they’ve all risen, they sing a 2-3 minute choral song. They were so good, I didn’t care anymore about them rooting me in line. Besides, the school wasn’t going to run out of tater tots. And if they’d run out of bacon, I wouldn’t have cared.

    I am getting up early in the morning to hopefully beat the kids to the dining hall. Wish me luck. Maybe they’ll have some non-pork meat in the dining hall, too. If not, I’m for sure going somewhere off-campus for breakfast Wednesday morning.

    Not so good things

    The Data Situation

    Not that it’s the fault of the school or the workshop –and I was forewarned about this– but the cell signal on campus really sucks and I’m very unhappy about that. Cell phones weren’t a thing when I was a student here, so it’s nothing I ever complained about back then, but right now, it’s frustrating. The replacement is public WiFi. Evil, evil public WiFi. The signal is just around campus, but still, public WiFi is of Beezlebub. Don’t trust it. Unless you’re far from a reliable cellular signal and it’s the only thing available.

    The Walking Situation

    I’d forgotten how it was walking here. Going down the hills is okay as it ever was. But going back up? Well, it’s hot and those hills are steep. And I missed a few weeks of throwing the bell and lifting, so I might have lost all kinds of my gains from those activities. Hopefully I’ll get used to it again. Being winded makes for some bad writer conversations on the way to the dining hall and back.

    The Accommodations Situation

    This didn’t happen to me, but a bunch of the folks didn’t get the bedsheets we were supposed to get. My roommate ended up fending for himself and going to some mystical laundry room that nobody else knew about.

    I’m not going to write a story about this, but I imagine someone else will one day. I hope so.

    Some other folks are having issues with wasps. So my issue with there being no hand soap is pretty low. Plus, I went and got some. Problem solved.

    The Breakfast Meat Situation

    All pork or veggie. I was a breakfast vegetarian today. Fortunately, I made up for that at dinner with burger and grilled chicken. I really went crazy on the protein. Still, there’s more to breakfast meat than pork.

    Good stuff so far

    There is a lady in my workshops who lives in Bethesda, but originally from Alabama. She’s a retired teacher who had been steered away from writing and towards being a teacher, back in the day.

    She wrote a brief essay in workshop about being a teen and the young, super-religious boys back then having issues with her skirt being too high above her knee. When they were wearing the same kind of stuff. She’s going after this body shaming and ridiculous double standards BS hard. I’m looking forward to what she’ll be writing next.

    While walking back from the dining hall with her, I told her my boss is from Louisiana and a huge LSU fan. She wouldn’t even acknowledge that I’d mentioned that. She said where she comes from, they ask you if you’re Alabama or Auburn. She even said some guy from Tennessee was asked that question there and he said he was Volunteers. They still asked him if he was Alabama or Auburn.

    If I’m ever in that part of Alabama and I have to choose between the two, I choose Alabama, only because Ozzie went there. Outside of Alabama, I’m Big 10 Maryland and ACC Miami.

    Oh and she’s been to freaking Breadloaf a few times.

    #

    My workshop leader, Angela Pelster-Wiebe, has an MFA from Iowa. And an interest in experimental essay forms. How could this be anything but good? We’ll be workshopping and writing the rest of the week. It’ll be her turn to read and lecture soon. I’m looking forward to that.

    #

    I took several pages of notes between Patricia Henley’s opening remarks yesterday and her craft talk today. I can’t even go into all of it right now without writing much more (this is up to about 7 typed pages). But suffice it to say, her ideas about using your curiosity in writing, have stirred up much in me.

    #

    The soda machine in Goodpaster is touchscreen and takes cards. I really needed that water.

    #

    A Few Pictures

    Having problems uploading. Will do that ASAP.

    #

    Conclusion

    If there’s anything I missed, I’ll cover it later. They have social stuff on campus during these post-workshop-event hours, but if we’re getting homework like the folks in the fiction and poetry workshops, I’ll be back in here writing each night. I made a commitment to blogging this experience and posting pictures of it.

    I’m so glad I have a couple of tablets I can use to watch TV on.