When I'm at a conference I'm just being there all prickly nervous one moment and heart-open engaged the next. It's not until later, sometimes much later, that I know how it went.
Here's a follow up from the Below Sea Level workshop. Since that first week in June, I've rewritten (twice) the chapter that was critiqued there. I like it. At the urging of Connie May, I made a time line for completing this novel - two months to write each chapter. Today, a week short of two months, I'm done (Well, not done, done. I'm never done, done.) with a brand new chapter.
I think it's safe now for me make a few conclusions about the conference - productive, worth every penny, and meaningful in ways that continue to be revealed.
This evening I printed out the final (for now) revision and then twirled around my house in celebration. In the midst of all this, the ink not even dry on the pages, I heard a trampling up my ramp and then a knock at the door. My poet friend and her house guests were, coincidentally, delivering fresh baked chocolate chip cookies (The type with ground oatmeal in them!), and we squealed together about my day's accomplishments.
Alert. Cliche to follow. Close your eyes if you must.
Life is Good. (She says this while brushing cookie crumbs off the keyboard.)