wellswriting

Big Adventure Starts Today February 27, 2013

I’m going to Utah today to attend a Short Fiction Master’s class taught by multiple award winning and best selling author, and Writers of the Future (WOTF) coordinating judge, David Farland.  It’s exciting and nerve racking at the same time.  I fly to Salt Lake City today and start the class tomorrow morning.  Twelve hour days are promised, which for an architect, are baby days around a project crunch time.  It will be a great chance to learn more about my writing. I have to admit that I have that little fear of ending up like one of those joke contestants on American Idol.  I may impress my family and friends with my stories, but now I am going to be personally screened by on of the biggest names in writing.

Preparation for the class has been to brainstorm a story that hasn’t been written yet.  Since Dave is a WOTF judge, whatever story I do write won’t be submitted to the contest.  That has left me free to try a short story idea I have had for years but never actually started.  There is a California mission in Lompoc California that is the only original Spanish mission that has been preserved in a remote setting without having a town or city built around it.  The entire place is like a moment in time frozen as it was in the 1830’s.  Visiting this place is as close to time travel as one could really experience.  So naturally I have a sort of Gentlemen in King Arthur’s Court kind of story idea that I haven’t penned.  I’ve done a little research and tomorrow it gets started.  Will I do the American Idol equivalent of getting up on stage and making a fool of myself? Or will I get the equivalent of a pass to the big show, with a nod of encouragement for the writing I do?

Of course I can’ t dwell on the worst imaginings, I can only pass the time trying to distract myself from the nervousness.  I do have a story to finish for WOTF.