I'm Going to Paradise!

After a day at the International Spy Museum, D and I returned to our hotel room, where this email was waiting for me:

Dear Mr. Chen,

On behalf of the staff and the instructors, I'd like to welcome you as
a student to Viable Paradise, and say congratulations!

This letter is a written confirmation of your acceptance to the 2008
Viable Paradise Writers Workshop, aka VP 12/XII...

There's more to the message, but that's the important bit. I was too surprised to be excited at first, since I had just applied yesterday and wasn't expecting to hear back for at least a week. But I got over that quickly.

I'm going to Viable Paradise! With John Scalzi! And Elizabeth Bear! And Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden! And fellow Half-Life 2 enthusiast Steven Gould, who also wrote Jumper! I probably shouldn't ask him what he thought of the movie, but maybe I'll ask his wife.

I'm not well acquainted with the works of the remaining two instructors, Debra Doyle and James D. McDonald, but I plan to do some reading before September...

Finally, in case you're wondering, the manuscript I submitted with my application was the current version of "Working Graves," which started with a dream I had in 1999. The opening scene is still mostly intact, though I've expanded upon it since that first draft. And I made a few important changes from the draft I submitted with my Clarion application.

~CKL