School on the Hill

Back at VCFA and it is like I’ve never left. Today is the first full day of classes, so we will be in full swing now. When I was in first semester, there was basically a full day of orientation before we even started classes, so I enjoy having a little bit of time to get settled and organized.  Plus, it is basically like a family reunion – seeing everyone again.

We received our faculty evaluations yesterday and I don’t think, again, I truly comprehended the work that I did. Not trying to sound self important, but it is funny how much I still don’t credit myself for the work that I’ve completed – even with all of my tweets and facebooking telling folks how many words I’d written that day. I’ve pondered why I do this. I think it is a combination of needing to commit to something and putting it out there means that I have to, and telling people why I’m up in my room writing most weekends.

In my self evaluation, I wrote how many pages I had thought that I had written, and I counted myself short. I also had completely forgotten a piece that I had written in the first packet that could be something quite lovely one day.

It isn’t just the amount of pages, it is also what I’ve learned about craft. How I read differently now.

The evaluation made me a little weepy because she was so lovely, so supportive about the things that I had done – things that I hadn’t up until that point really gave myself credit for.

As much as I “patted myself on the back” with a hot bath and a nice dinner, I truly didn’t recognize what I had done. Just moved forward.

Perhaps this is a lesson in pausing. In recognizing our efforts and celebrating them. Being okay in celebrating them. Not thinking (as I even said above) that one is being too self important or selfish in some way for “showing off” to ourselves our accomplishments. I wonder if this is what holds us back…how can we succeed if we cannot accept our own success?

Or even our failures. We learn from those, too.

The third semester…third semester!…is about the critical thesis. Some embrace it, many fear it. I love critical work, and have been playing with the idea for quite some time, so hopefully I can jump in.

I was accepted into a small short story workshop with Alan Cumyn. There are six of us in the group, which should make it a very cozy creative space. I love how I’ve come full circle with this mentor. The person who I began with in Banff, I get to continue to work here.

My piece is a story that I had been working on for a few years which, after my work this semester,  had been completely revised – new point of view, tone and, hopefully, not so melodramatic. It gets discussed next week, so, for now, I get to embrace the brilliance of the other pieces.

Last winter I had the opportunity to do a Q&A with Grace Lin who was visiting here. The Shining Scroll, an L.M. Montgomery journal, published the interview. You can see it here.  Part One contains a wonderful overview of the conference that I attended last October and Part Two contains the Q&A, plus many other nuggets.

I will not promise a blog every day. Residency is pretty hectic, but I suspect there will be times where I shall need to come here and muck about. I am hopefully going to do a Q&A with one of the visiting authors here…I’ll be sure to share that if that happens.

Happy Tuesday…it is Tuesday, right?