- enjoyed a lovely pancake breakfast, courtesy of Patrick.
- enjoyed a lovely talk on setting by Kat.
- delicious sandwiches for lunch!
- enjoyed a lovely talk on reading aloud by Mary.
- nice salmon dinner and conversation with Erin.
- figured out how the pieces of my novel-in-progress all fit together. (Mostly.)
- ended the day with a total word count of 4,211.
- DeeAnn finished the first complete draft of our collaborative story!
And the bad news:
- cat-sitter reports that Jasper threw up. Nothing serious, but I feel bad that DeeAnn and I aren't home to comfort him.
- devastation in Japan, and tsunami warnings for the Washington coast. We're about 150 feet above sea level and at least 20 miles inland, so I think we'll be okay, but I still worry. I guess we'll find out what happens at 7:30 AM.
When I attended Viable Paradise in the fall of 2008, it was right in the middle of the financial crisis, and I have a distinct memory of looking over Patrick's shoulder at his laptop, as he read out the news about the federal government seizing WaMu. (I also have a later memory of seeing JoCo tweet about it, but that's another story.)
And now this.
It's almost as if the universe is trying to tell me something, daring me to care about art while other, more important things are happening in the world. What good is writing fantasy and science fiction when there are people dying, and you can't do anything about it?
Well, the short answer is right there. I can't do anything about the natural and manmade disasters that are sometimes too big to even contemplate. But I can, as Neil says, Make Good Art. That's what I can contribute to the world. And so I will.
But first, sleep, and hopefully no bad dreams. (Though I also have a history of turning those into halfway decent stories.)
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