From the Twilight zone

Well, what do you know, here I am in Forks, Washington. I'm not even a Twilight fan, but it's fascinating to see how the books have invaded the town. I'm staying in the hotel that says "Edward Cullen did not sleep here!" so I should be pretty safe from infection/attack. We arrived yesterday, and explored the Hoh Rain Forest and Second Beach at La Push today. Tomorrow we'll move on south.

All this is part of a lengthy ramble around Washington State, with perhaps some incursions into Oregon. We caught the Coast Starlight up from LA last Wednesday week and noodled around in Seattle for three days, shopping and acclimatising, looking in the odd museum and gallery. Then we went off to Whidbey Island and then across to Port Townsend, along the top of the Olympic Peninsula to Cape Flattery, the most north-westerly point of the US. On to Forks etc.

One more week's worth of sightseeing and it'll be Clarion West time—the new class will just be being broken in by Paul Park at this point.

No, it's true, I'm not getting a lot of writing done. :)

To Clarion West and beyond!

Very soon, I'll be flying out to the US to begin ambling slowly towards Seattle, where from July 4-8 I'll be teaching a week of the six-week Clarion West workshop, which is an honour and a thrill—this is the workshop I attended back in 1999 (an age and just a minute ago), and I'll be coming after Paul Park, whose A Princess of Roumania series I am in awe of, and Nancy Kress, who taught the first week of the 1999 workshop. After me, Minister Faust, L. Timmel Duchamp and Charles Stross will teach. If our workshoppees don't know a whole bunch more about writing after this team's had their way with them, I'll eat my hat—and it's a large hat, with feathers.

But it's a long road to Clarion. There is much sightseeing to be done up the West Coast and around Seattle. And afterwards, too, down the West Coast and in San Francisco. If you have any ideas about things I should not miss, please let me know.

I'll regularly check email while I'm gone, probably tweet a fair bit and maybe even venture to put something on the Facebook wall and this blog now and then. I should be fairly easy to e-contact, but I might not respond instantly. Keep trying! My travelling email can be a touch unreliable—generally the issue is with my answering emails, or your answering emails (don't use the automatic 'localhost' address), so just be aware of that.

I'll blog again from Californ-eye-ay, oh yes. *waves handkerchief* *becomes tiny in the distance*

Selkies have swum orf

Last night in a fit of insomnia, I finished the last tweaks to the selkies-novel manuscript, entered the corrections to the second half, and sent it off—yes, even though all the editors and the agent had closed up shop for the weekend. Now, because the applications I was supposed to be reading haven't turned up (this does not bode well for next week, as I work Mon-Wed and the assessment meeting is on Thursday) I'm looking at the prospect of an entirely obligation-free weekend. So tell me, what do people do, who aren't procrastinating or actually chugging towards the next deadline?

I could reacquaint myself with housework, perhaps?

I could try to remember how to exercise? *moves limb experimentally*

Definitely I should get outside and walk around a bit in that sunny stuff (or rainy, which is just as likely these days).

Oh yes, and I was going to have an experimental packing session for the big trip that starts Monday week.

There are also other people's books that I could read. *twinkles fingers over the NZ-souvenirs pile*

The world is alive with possibilities!