The denouement of any story should provide a sense of closure and emotional resolution, resolving any outstanding conflicts.  Deviations from this pattern, such as in Neon Genesis Evangelion or Lost, are often met with disappointment or hostility from the audience.

But this blog isn’t a narrative.  It’s a series of impressions, a stream-of-consciousness travelogue attempting to describe an experience in terms of its emotional impact rather than – and in fact, studiously avoiding – factual events.

Eventually, it becomes impossible to describe something so intensely personal, or a shared experience, without ruining the magic.  I can only show the silhouette of the thing against the sun.

Wednesday morning I slept in, my sleep deprivation and nascent cold catching up with me.  We had the last of our critique groups that morning.  The quality of my critiques had slipped a bit, not least because I was having trouble staying awake in the best of circumstances.

Monday

I awoke at 5:30 AM.  My mind slogged while I rummaged for clothes to wear in the dark, my roommate still asleep next to me.  I checked the clock again: 5:54.  I nearly stumbled as I finished getting ready and made it outside to the driveway in front of the building where we all are staying.

I met six other students standing outside in the cold and dark, waiting.  Soon, JIm MacDonald emerged from the building, wearing his tan wide-brimmed hat.  We set off for the edge of Edgartown, a mile and a half away.

I awoke this morning from the only good night’s rest I’ll get for the rest of the week.

My feet hung from the foot of the bed, the comforter twisted around me.  The regular size twin beds in the guestroom aren’t quite long enough for my almost-six-foot height.  I get out of bed, brush up, and check my intense backlog of RSS reader items while my roommates awake.

The conversation soon turns to writing philosophies.  One of us wrote a semi-religious short story inspired by Buddhist imagery; the other has had multiple sales in magazines and anthologies.  I can’t help but be envious.  This guy clearly has his shit together, while I feel like I’m barely keeping up with the conversation some of the time.

In my convoluted travel itinerary to get to Martha’s Vineyard without flying directly to the island, I forgot one important fact:

Travel is exhausting.

Let’s start with the, um, start.  My flight was scheduled to leave at 9 AM from Tampa International.  I give myself two hours to pick up my ticket, get through security, and find my gate whenever I fly.  It’s always seemed a bit excessive, given how close some of my friends cut it when they fly.

Earlier this year, I applied to the workshop Viable Paradise, held annually at Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

When I was accepted in May, I thought there had been a mistake.

I have no published works under my name.  I’ve finished two novels, completed a rough draft of a third, and the half-formed bodies of half a dozen lay about my hard drive like unfinished ship models.  My education in composition and literary analysis is best described as “self-taught”: apart from Composition I and II in college, I’ve relied on reading dozens of how-to books in writing, as well as practicing the craft itself.  No, I thought, I couldn’t be ready.  I couldn’t be good enough to be taught by two of the best editors in the industry and a half dozen wonderful authors.