I just want to state for the record that the only reason I'm actually writing something today is because three (3) people have complained to me about it.  I don't usually cave to peer pressure, but oh well.  I folded like a cheap lawnchair this time.

I woke up, the first time, at 8am this morning.  Then I woke up again at 10:30am.  This led me to a revelation of sorts.  No matter what time I go to bed, I can't fully function until 10:30am.  For example, I normally go to be around 2am or so (at least during the Summer when I can get away with such shenanigans) -- I wake up at 10:30am.

Last night I went to bed at 11:30pm.  I was tired and had nothing else to do.  I set the alarm for 8am.  That's enough sleep, right?  Well, as I already told Jenny, it wasn't.  My alarm went off and I was dead tired.  Went back to sleep and woke up at at 10:30am, unassisted.  I need to go professional with my writing soon so that I can wake up at 10:30am every morning.  I fear going back to school in the Fall, with all the alarm clocks that entails.

Anyway, that was a total aside.  I think I'm going to briefly continue my bootcamp experience.  The first two entries were written on location, so to speak, with just a few modifications right before I posted them.  This one I'm pulling directly from my memory.

Day 2

This morning, I woke up early.  I had been screwed out of breakfast yesterday and was not going to let such a sin occur again.  I spotted Dave and Grant (also bootcampers) on my way out, and we walk to the main hall together.  I haven't mentioned this before, but the cafeteria we eat at takes the reputation of a school cafeteria very seriously.  Bad food, watered down drinks to boot.  I grab a bowl of cereal and a banana, along with some shockingly grape powerade.  It was blue and tasted like raspberry.

The whole group met in Durham again, and OSC continued his talks.  We discuss, we laugh, we learn, then we break up into small groups to discuss our homework assignments.  The bootcampers group together -- we're going to be working together soon, anyway, so we might as well.  We first read aloud our POV pieces and tell each other if there were any violations that we noticed.  Then, we workshop our favorite card.  Remember how we were supposed to have come up with five seperate story ideas on five seperate notecards -- based on an interview, etc.  Well, I only had the one -- and so that was my favorite.  I really enjoy some of the story ideas that some of the others have, and give what I'd like to call good suggestions and advice for vamping them up a bit.

The talks today were largely on POV and on the mechanics of publishing -- the business side of the craft.  I've already read extensively about this, and so the willy-nilly advice that OSC has gives me pause.  It makes me wonder if, since he hasn't been a first-time writer since the mid 70's, he really knows what it takes for a first-time writer today.  After all, when he writes a book, it has already been sold somewhere before he's finished.  We unlucky, unpublished bastards don't typically have such a luxury.  But his advice is good, and the true key to publishing is just writing so well that a publisher can't NOT buy your work.  If you do that, you can't go wrong.

This is the last day with the full conference.  He said thank you to everyone and goodbye.  Then he talked to the bootcampers.  Told us to prepare for tomorrow when we'd be writing our brains out and our fingers off.  The bootcampers retired to our dorms, and we sat around and chatted in one person's room or another until it was time for bed.